Please Remember our director here at the school. We were hiking this morning, and he got dehydrated and then when we got back to the car, he had chest pains, and went to the hospital. Not really sure what's going on, but please Remember.
Lots of things have made themselves known to me in the last couple weeks, and I am grateful. It's time.
Soooo.... it's 12:30 on Saturday morning (or Friday night, depending on how you want to say it. And... I have to work in the morning.... and I drank a whole liter of Mountain Dew over the course of a 4-hour Halo 3 session with my old roommate that I just got back from.... and I'm totally wired. Going to try to go to sleep, but we'll see what happens. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Yeah. Did you know how weird I get when I have had that much sugar?
In other news, my tonsils didn't fall out.
So the day is done. It went crazy pretty much right from the first, when my load out and setup time for graduation got pushed up two hours. And then I found out I probably needed to redo the video that I had made. And that the programs hadn't gotten printed and the printer wasn't working. And that the accreditation team needed a printer. And the earth fell off.
Er.
Anyway, today was a good day. Today, life is good. These are the kind of days I was made for. Other people may be worn out, I'm all good. I want to go to the batting cage so bad for some reason. I worked out and I'm still ready to go. Maybe it's like the end of the race - you know it's coming so the other gear gets hit. Whatever it is, I'm ready for it.
Trade you. My last few days have been absolutely crazy. Tomorrow is graduation, and it is going to be hectic as well.
I take that back. I wouldn't trade you for the world. I've realized, the last couple days, that I can do this. I was built for this, I was made for this. Rather than being back in the comfortable lifestyle I held, I was built to push and go and go until I don't have much more left to give. I guess there's a form of arrogance in that statement, but it's as much truth as I can manage to give you at this point.
Is there really anywhere else left for us to go? I don't have any starfish, I don't have any absolution, no recalcitrant faces. Just me and my own lack of meaningfulness. So we take what comes, and just don't require to to make the kind of sense that we used to want it to. I quit being offended at people's statements when I make the same kind. I quit insisting that my stability be predicated on my own ability. I just walk alone, back Home.
I've got lots to tell about in regards to the recent past. Much of which is inconsequential and will soon be forgotten. Some of which is dumb and probably better forgotten. A bit of the recent past seems like it will be a key to my future.
One of the things that I have been led to realize recently is that good situations aren't always meant to last forever. Just because I enjoy something, that doesn't mean that the situation has to be permanent or temporary. Instead of worrying about the length of enjoyment, I have to just relax and enjoy in the moment.
Today has been an up and down day. On one hand, I've got to exercise my media nerd exercisions. On the other hand, I've been frustrated by all I have to do in a seemingly short amount of time. I figured a way around a couple things, but spent way too much time on some other things. I think you can guess how that goes.
I also got frustrated by the kids I had for basketball completely goofing around. I almost kicked three or four of them out, or just shut down the game, but it was the seniors' last chances to play and I kind of hated to do that. I guess that's what I pay to play the other games.
Whatever. Back to finishing this video before Thursday.
My dreams change to dreams of shrinking.
It's an amazing world we live in when everything we need is provided for us. All we have to do is take it, and sever the strings that tie us to this earth.
Space folds, and I find myself back at the start again. It's alright, because the beginning is a good place to end.
Hard drives (more specifically, file system volumes that are mounted) on Mac OSX can have a descriptive name attached to them. My main hard drive is named Ablative Armor.
My computer is my ablative armor way too much. Today started out good with a nice wallk, but then more and more, I just wanted people to quit calling me, I wanted things to quit getting assigned to me with short deadlines, and just curl up with my projects and my computer, and burn off some of my frustration in a controlled manner.
It's 9:15 P.M., and I'm waiting for some video to render. I'm telling myself I'm leaving at 10:30 P.M. I guess I'll go home and curl up away from my dreams. It makes no sense sometimes what we have to fall into, what we think we don't need, but we just have to deal with it, you know? I wish I knew what was just a dream. I wish I knew what could ever be permanent.
I have this growing sense of where some things about my life are headed, but I've had it before. It would be nice to know what the final verdict was, but that would be premature. So I just try not to wander but walk with purpose. Trust is all I can manage some days, but soon these some days will be those days, and the light of former days is pale and cold, and doesn't provide illumination for the path ahead.
I wish I was Moved more. I wish I knew what the difficulty in these things was.
Well. Today was a day where I looked up, it was 11:30 A.M. and I couldn't decide if I should be happy that half the day was gone, if I should be frustrated that I hadn't gotten more done, or if I was just tired and hungry and didn't really care. I'm really trying not to 'look forward' to going back to the States, but it's kind of hard at times.
I tried to be as helpful as possible today, and didn't get some stuff done that I probably needed to. That's the way it goes sometimes, I guess.
I woke up early and worked out. That makes my mornings better, so I'm going to try to keep doing it. I'm kind of planning on buying a bike in the States and riding for a while every morning.
Some of the teachers had a TCK re-entry seminar this afternoon that I helped with. It was good to get to talk to some of our seniors about things they'll encounter in college. I hope it helped.
As far as the rest of everything goes...
Ever notice that you have an 'public' voice and a 'family' voice? Different tones, mannerisms, expressions? I found myself using my family voice around someone today that I didn't realize I was really at the comfort level to use the family voice with. It was strange. It is strange to be this person in this place.
I'm fine again. I know who I am, and I know the only one Who never changes. I'm in a masquerade, but I don't always play the game.
Living is hard. Living is simple.
Played in a volleyball tournament today. Lost all my games, but that's OK. I guess you've got to lose sometimes.
We had a couple little discussions about gaining or losing brownie points today. Some people are apparently convinced that I'm firmly entrenched on the 'good list' for no real reason that I can see. All I do is my job, and pretty poorly at times.
I'm going to try to go to bed early tonight. I can't be losing sleep any more. I need to not think about some things any more. I need to get out of being just in between, just stuck.
What I am doing here?
xkcd is awesome.
I haven't posted anything of substance onto my blog in days. Isn't that awesome?
When you get to sleep at 1:00 and wake up at 5:00, you have no one to blame but yourself.
The longer I'm here, the less I know why I'm here, and the more I know that coming here was what I had to do. How does that work?
I probably shouldn't complain about being tired when I stay up until midnight. Even though the environment makes me wake up at 4:50, I could go to bed sooner.
Oh yeah, that's right. When I tried that, it didn't help.
I'm wanting to see my family, but dreading leaving. Is that weird or what?
Quiet words are all I could have hoped for.
I got to drive today. Took an evasive driving course. The only downside was driving a stick shift for the first time in years. I didn't do as well as I could have wished, but it was still fun. I guess I'll get to drive around here now some. It could/should be fun.
Lots more I wish I could say. I don't want to run away from these things anymore.
I wish that it was just that easy.
Today has been a long day - it is 10:00 P.M. and I woke up at 2:00 A.M. I had a good day today. I wallked and then worked. I did sound for the H.S. concert, on the fourth floor of a hot wedding hall. It went OK, I just didn't really have the care or consideration that I should have because I was tired, it was hot, and I had a lot of other stuff to do.
There are only two weeks of school left. I have to confess, I dread change. I am almost at the place where I don't want it to come. I want to stay here like this for a while. I don't want to be away from these days for very long. I want to be with family, but I want to know what is real or just a dream.
Yet, change happens in my life. I just have to accept it, see why it has been given to me, and go on with the life I have been given. The time will come when home won't be a place, the time will come when Home will be so close. The time will come when I find peace in a few situations, the time will come when I will have the strength to become nothing. When all I want will be that which I should want. Then, maybe then, will the things that I focus on too much these days come, maybe then they will come.
I wish it were just as easy as saying a couple of the right words. Instead, my feet just keep moving up hill. My heart stayed a couple hundred yards down the trail, not sure when it's going to catch up. I wish it were just as easy as making another resolution. Instead, I give up everything, and maybe I will one day hear the words I long to. Maybe one day I will hear the Words to take me Home.
Old roommate's little sister, you've got it right when you leave more encouraged. I say that sometimes, something we as humans do becomes more than what it started out as, and instead of contributing to someone else when you serve, you seem to feel you get the bigger blessing.
Isn't this an amazing Prime Mover that pushes us into the situations where we don't have to do anything other than be who we are, and in that we can serve? Instead of cute things to say, we are taken and used just as we are. Just how we were made.
You just keep being an encouragement to those around you, just how you were made to be.
Today has been another day where I couldn't focus, felt like I couldn't get a lot accomplished, couldn't find the groove. But I had a good day anyway. It is the last week that the seniors are in school, and so we had a basketball tournament to celebrate. The staff played too. :) Yeah, we won. We were nice, but we won. The kids played decently, but we won. (If any of y'all found my blog yet, niener, niener, niener!)
Some days I remind myself of somebody else, and then I remember that it's who I used to be. I don't think I'll ever be him again, and I'm pretty happy about that.
P.S. : 90:17
Today was a good day. I was happy today. I don't even know why, but I am glad I was happy.
Maybe it's not right to be excited about just being happy. Maybe there's supposed to be more. Maybe I don't have anyone but myself to blame all this on.
Sober. Fine Again. Everything will be fine even though I have broken lungs and I can't move mountains. All that I want to give gets caught between every rib. What does that make me? What's wrong with what I have to give today? Why'd you go away? Why'd I go away? Why'd I think You went away?
Well. Today is more of me being myself for somewhat unknown reasons. I am prepared now for myself. Found again.
The sun will set on all that I have done, said, or accomplished, and it will be as dust. Except that which has been accomplished through an agency other than my own. I closed the doors that it wasn't my responsibility to do so for. The day will be bright, the stars shining, and still I will be walking and looking like this, just like I always have. Please stay here for a while? Just to take in the sights that I can't surprise You with, because You gave them to me in the first place. The day may be overcast and gloomy to some eyes, but the gray will not go away, because You made it just like You made every other day.
Just like every other day, I will rejoice.
One of the guys here turns 30 day after tomorrow, so his wife threw him a sur[rise party tonight. It was fun.
We played volleyball this morning. It was fun.
I worked some and goofed off most of the day. It was fun.
Played cards with a couple guys, including the science teacher's 6 year old son. It was fun.
I'm unaware and afraid. It was fun.
Now that I've gone so far. I guess there's not much else left than to just press on.
Even when I want to quit. Even when I want to be normal for a bit. Even when I wonder why.
Ever wonder why you don't get to see results from the things you do? It's a place I find myself in quite often. The conclusion that has been recently drawn in my head is that if I saw the results, I would become prouder than I already am, and would being to think that it was actually me doing the work.
I never saw the backlash against myself when the tide begin to rise.
Ok, half-transparent rant here. There is something that if one more person says something to me about, I think I'm going to be the most recent supernova in the galaxy. I just want to ask them, "Do you think I'm really content with it either? Do you realize that I've tried to do something about it, and just ended up with nothing oth than more growth experience?" No, I don't know why either, and you're not helping. I guess I'll find the conclusion to this phase someday, but until then, just stop it. It's not helping me at all, and it's not doing a thing on the other side either.
Thanks.
I'm such a whiny brat.
On the plus side, we played v-ball against some locals today, and actually won a game.
One day, I will wake up, and never find the living among the dead.
I think the thing that I struggle the most with here is the inability to be alone, but the ability to be profoundly lonely sometimes. We live on a compound in the middle of a city of millions of people. It's never really quiet, never really dark, and you never exactly feel like you're away from people. In this situation, I find it easy to cultivate an easy intimacy with my teammates that feels like it is deeper than simple friendship, but I guess really isn't. Some people here have told me they feel like they can talk to me or they can trust me, and I wonder who it is that they know or think they're talking to, because I don't recognize that person that they talk about.
Who I am is self-centered, brutish, rude, inconsiderate, lazy. I guess either I deceive everyone else or myself. I know there is something that has been started in me, and that this will be completed, but I can't see myself as the right tool for this job right now. I just want to work all this out in my head, but I also guess that I'm going to be working this out for a while.
Apparently, there is something fairly wrong with a guy who is a huge egotist but doesn't take compliments well. Someone gave me one yesterday, and it still bothers me. I wish I had someone else to blame things on, but at the end of the day it is just me, just one lazy, ineffective person.
I guess this makes me sound depressed or something. I'm not depressed, there's merely a lack of clarity in my head about the things I'm supposed to do or be. Maybe it's not just in my head, and that's something else I have to process.
I saw that the sky was blue today.
I subbed for fifth grade for a while today.
I got encouraged today.
I wish I could be more that who I am.
I saw that the color isn't just going to stay.
I struggled to do my job today because I don't know what it is.
I helped out today.
I wish I knew the measure of my days.
For all of these things, I focused on myself. Instead, focus should be elsewhere. Fine is all I have to stay with.
I'd rather be stung by the truth.
I'd rather be stung by the truth, I'd rather hear it from You than be lied to.
I'm just here. Some days are better than others. I'm content in my slight unhappiness, because I know I'm supposed to be here. I still want what I probably shouldn't but that stumble doesn't change the fact that pretty soon, I'm going to ignite. Then won't we be a sight to see?
I'd rather be stung by the truth than be lied to.
At least I don't have to pay for all the things I've done.
I'm struggling to figure out how to relate what I want to talk about in this post. Lots of reasons for this, mostly having to do with the fact that I guess I'd need to somehow shoehorn you inside my head with all the other stuff going on inside it for this to truly make sense.
I guess at the end of the day, I can't relate much more than to say the semester is wearing down but keeps going, I am struggling with wanting shut people out and yet disliking spending the evening alone for the tenth day in a row, frustrated with the lack of direction at my job yet somehow staying busier than I want, wishing I could just be done with things in this phase and still not knowing what I should do about it. I perceive in saying all these things that I am still a liar, in a way, since this doesn't accurately convey the processes that are all running in my head. Sometimes I feel like all my brain does is try to come up with the biggest tree for a ps -aux that it can. And I guess in a way, I know that I am going to be fine tomorrow because I'm in the hands that made the colors.
Sleep's been coming hard for me again, I don't get tired at night and it gets light early. That's a funny metaphor for my current state that I can't explain to you and I probably won't understand in a week when I read this again.
And even with all this that is running at a whirlwind pace inside the teapot that is my head, I have a couple constants. I know that I am supposed to be here, and the struggles that I have are a refining process and I'm trying to hold on to bits that need to be purified from me. I know that I will make it through this, just maybe not how I pictured it when it started. Even though some days I want to quit, I can't ever go back to the 'normal' that never really was. Understanding isn't a requirement in my current place. For right now I'm OK with being stuck here waiting. For now, I'm OK with hoping to be taken home when home has been prepared. For now, I know that one day where I am and what I have to deal with will be...
No more illusions. I haven't found the end yet. I can't set me free. And until that day comes, I'm just another man, broken, filled, put here because I called. And I won't let go. Come what may, I will run.
I took a walk this morning, saw the sun. Had donuts with a couple guys. Played computer games. Played Ultimate for a couple hours. Went to Meeting. Played volleyball for a couple hours. Ate. Worked out. Blogging.
It's 8:00 P.M., I've been up since 3:20 A.M. I have a huge bruise on my tail from Frisbee, my muscles are dead tired. I'm blogging for the second time today.
I did no work today. I like days like today every once in a while. There are only two things that would have made today better. I miss one and want the other. And I'm not talking about chocolate.
Well. It's 4:00 A.M. I woke up at 3:20 to help our director out with a Skype video call he was making back to the States for a retirement concert his father (a music teacher) had. It was cool, we had talked to the tech person at the school in the states, and they projected our director up on their screen and pumped his voice through the sound system. We have no electricity at 4:00 A.M., and I had to hold a flashlight up so you could see his face. But it happened, and I'm glad I could help. I'm glue.
Life here is proceeding apace, we're getting closer and closer to the end of school all the time. I'm working on some proposals for new equipment for next year, including a new portable computer lab. If I can get all the ideas for that lined up and get funding, it should be pretty neat. Anyone have any connections with a computer distribution company? I'm looking to buy a decent chunk of equipment, and am really hoping I can talk someone into giving me a good price break on of it, seeing as how we are a non-profit and in Afghanistan.
I find myself wanting to say more, and not knowing what to say. Suffice to say, that explains a lot of what I want to say these days. All that I want to give gets stuck between every rib, and I have good intentions, but no exit for them to come out right through. What does that make me? I having this feeling of being in the middle of a telescope - I look one way and everything is so big, I look the other and everything is so small. Maybe I'll make it over to where I have the right perspective soon.
Have you ever wondered how people describe you when you're not around? I mean, not just the comments about specific incidents, but if someone said to another person while you weren't there, "What's so-and-so like?" What do you think they would say? What would you want them to say? Are those in the same set? I'm never sure if they are for myself. The comfort is that there's really only one opinion that matters, and that opinion doesn't really involve me. Still, I would like to know what others think of me. I guess I need to learn to put that aside.
And here, I find myself, wanting to do something perhaps I can't. Has it really been that long since I was gone? Has it really been that long since I was and was not who I am? This is why I wonder how people describe me.
I'm going to stay awake and hopefully see the new sun. It rises over the land, bringing light to a place where darkness is not as far estranged as we could wish. But then again, the light isn't as estranged as I seem to think it is, either.
Waiting on today, no longer. This day is done and over, and a new day dawns soon.
This has been a productive, un-productive, overdone and undone week. I've been busy but I haven't gotten lots done. I've been helpful but I haven't made things happen. I haven't spent lots of time around people but I've not been alone. It's OK, and I don't want to change the things that I never thought I would wish to stay the same.
We have about four weeks left of school, and I'm really starting to feel the teachers around me wanting to be done. It'll come soon enough, and then we'll go just to come back. It's neat to see everything working together. Reaching for the skies, and I find that sometimes things come that you don't expect. You don't exactly know how to deal with them, and that's half the fun.
We sometimes receive the word in the light or the lens of the things that we hold in our hearts. So sometimes, we corrupt the guidance that is there, just because of what we want to see. Behind our surface sincerity in seeking lies the selfishness that we wish we could leave behind. I'm more guilty of keeping those lenses intact when I should have put them away long ago. I'd rather have heard it than continue to live in a soma-soaked world where I deceived myself into thinking that what I saw was really about what I wanted it to be about.
Sometimes this is hard to call like it is, because those lenses keep clouding over with our own heavy breath. Wanting things doesn't make them real, right, or wrong. It just makes them out there, and we have to keep dealing with them and doing our best to see if the guidance that we think we are getting is real or is just in the light of what we want.
Sometimes also means that I can, on occasion, perceive clear guidance and really see what it was that I was being shown. It is these instances where I can paint an accurate portrait of where I am supposed to go, of what I am supposed to be doing. I don't know if I've been seeing one of those times of late, or if it's just my lenses again, but I also think that a thing I've been impressed with a lot over the last year is that I have to take steps, not just be passive. Come what may, I will run. Despite the risk, despite the probable lack of reward, despite worldly counsel around me and in my own head, I will run. In my brokenness, I can be empowered forever, if I would just run.
In my guys group tonight, we talked about the father of No Mercy and Not My People. We talked about how he had to be broken, be humbled before he could bring the message. And how the fallow ground must be broken for the seeds to be sown and the rain to come. I can't break the fallow ground in anyone else, so I'll break it in my own heart first. Not through actions or deeds, but through returning the greatest of these. The cool refreshment that I, and so many others, so often regard as saltwater. We're swimming in an ocean of it, but we drown of thirst because we won't drink it.
Parallels and payments.
I didn't just shut down and close myself off from people today. I'm kind of glad of that.
But You've always been there for me, even when I wasn't there for you.
Semantics have more value that I wish they did.
This is me, I'm always the same.
Can we just find the answers out without working for them? That would seem to be too easy, but let's call it what it is. The real truth of our lives is that we don't claim the things that have been given to us, instead we claim the lies and the deceit that drag us down. Behind the smiles, sincerity isn't really enough to leave this state.
This is me, I'm always the same.
Leaving behind the things that we used to know doesn't always mean that we're going to instantly find something new, something better. Sometimes I guess that we just have to wander for a while so that we really know to trust someone other than ourselves for our direction. There's no way to fall in line without that trust. I find myself being a messenger for a message that I thought I was totally unqualified to carry. I think that my thinking is right - I am totally unqualified by any measure I can come up with.
This is me, I'm always the same.
Where was I when this all started? I'm not sure if I was actually paying attention to what was going on around me, or if I was just hanging out in the snack line waiting for the next bit of soma to stave off the ennui for a while. I'm a liar and a deceiver, and it seems that this doesn't really change the older I get, maybe it just gets a little more subtle and a little easier and harder to resist at the same time.
This is me, I'm always the same.
I don't really know any more how to change the things that I guess I'm not supposed to be anymore. If I'm always the same, what is there that can really be changed? Plenty. Starting at the exposition of who I used to be, which is not a truism that can be bandied about by comforting words. Smiles on the face just roll off when faced with the adversity common in this world, if our smiles are only based here.
This is me, I'm always the same.
I have more in common with those that I would not. I have less in common with those that I want to than I wish. A single voice speaking could change some of those commonalities, but I don't look for that change to happen soon, which is a kind of disappointment. Something like that change is perhaps not to be as wished for as I think, and in fact, may not happen for a long time.
This is me, I'm always the same.
I spoke at our small group meeting today. 60 or so people. I was kind of nervous before, but not during. 40 minutes. (Yeah, I didn't know I could talk in front of people for 40 minutes and not get freaked out either.) People said they got something out of it, so I suppose that means it went OK. I honestly don't know.
The next few weeks are going to be kind of busy.
I played Frisbee this morning and did pretty good, I think. It was fun.
I would write more, but I spent a good chunk of the morning revising, and so I'm wrote out.
*edit*
Maybe You can set me free?
I shaved the rest of the beard off today. It feels kinda weird.
I don't have much to say. I wish I knew where to go after all. I'm glad I don't have to worry about it.
Do you have anything to say?
