Skipping Like Stones Across the Lake

I'm currently in a phase in my life that's not really a phase. It's more of a phase between phases. A series of stepping stones on a lake between two opposing shores, if you will. I am in a transition.

There is a question in my head, though. One that tends to knock rather impatiently against the door of my brain late at night. One that I don't feel quite right about skipping across the stones in my lake until I have answered:

What are my two shores?

What am I running to? What am I running from?

I used to think that I was running from evil towards good. I used to think very black and white like that. It was easier that way. More hopeful. I could think that everything was improving and some day everything would be alright. I used to think that way, but I don't anymore. There's good and evil in everything I do. Something of God, and something of myself. I just hope that this next phase of my life will be more about Him and less about me. I feel like it could go either way at that point.

I remember my mom telling me when I was little that phrase that I'm sure every child hears from their parents at one point or another. "You'll understand when you get older." 

Why is it that the older I get, the less I seem to understand? Something just keeps stirring the water, while I hold to my position, afraid to step either forward or back. 

I need to move at some point.

Which way?

Boys and Girls

My bathroom is a mess right now.

Bags of makeup, several types of shampoo, curling irons, straightening irons, and a bunch of other irons/ hair care tools that I have no idea what they do. I wonder about my visiting sisters and their friends. Do I really know what they look like?

Girls are messy. I'm not talking about "women" or "ladies," or any of the other things that a group of single men might idealize them to be. Let no one fool you. Girls are messy. They're loud, they're messy, they're emotional, and they have some sort of assembly line factory that they construct in the bathroom that helps them to become the person you see and idealize every day at school or work or church.

It's been a while since I've been this close to girls. Real girls. messy, loud, emotional hair care factory girls. I've just been staring at the bathroom, trying to guess what things do, or even which direction you hold them. 

Boys are simple. we don't do much to make ourselves look presentable. We wash our clothes, shower, shave, and brush our teeth. Beyond that, there's not much help for us. Boys are simple, girls are complicated.  That's probably why we don't really understand each other very well. We form this strange paradox in relationships. We pull each other in different ways, each trying to make the other more like them.

I had forgotten what it was like to live with girls. I had gotten used to this male-centric existence that I had been living. I had forgotten how much I needed them. Even though we don't always get along. Even though we're technically opposites, even though I don't really understand most of the things they do. I need them.

Boys and girls have this long, sordid history of not getting along, and hurting each other. I've been hurt enough to not want it anymore, but I've learned something this week about girls, in the middle of all the video games, girly movies, and (wrong) lyrics to John Denver being sung out loud. I think we need each other, and I think that without these relationships, we'll always be just one half of the equation.

The Philosophical Whims of Prepackaged Cookies

Today, something very special was supposed to happen. 

I don't know what it was, but I did everything I could to make sure that my good fortune was not interrupted. I woke up early this morning. I brushed AND flossed my teeth. I wore a nice shirt and my lucky socks. I went into the office, and called all of the people I was supposed to call. I did everything I could. You know what happened?

Nothing.

Conclusion:

Either I did something wrong, or the fortune cookie I ate on December 24th, telling me that three months from that day would be significant, was completely false. Or maybe it was just a piece of paper with something written on it. 

Not that I really believe in that sort of thing.

I think. 

It's silly, I know, but I had actually hoped, on some level, that something significant would happen today. I could really use a significant event. Something to change my perspective. I want something new.

God had promised me something new. (see my post "San Fransisco, Day One: Shorelines/Transitions" for more info).  When, though? My life seems to have taken the form of a ticking clock. Everything is about timing, and I have put my faith in someone who exists outside of time.

I think I really hoped that a fortune cookie message would tip his hand. I don't think I really thought that. I just thought it would be nice to know ahead of time when something big is going to happen, so I can have my camera ready, and plan my work schedule accordingly. 

My God, can you imagine what would have happened to my spiritual life if something important really did happen today? I would be done reading the Bible. I would be so obsessed with fortune cookies that I might actually want to eat one.

I shudder at the thought.

Back to trust. Good old fashioned trust. The type with no limitations on time, socks, ethnicity, or the philosophical whims of prepackaged cookies. One where we sit and we trust. One where we float along and we hope for the best. A world where we live so very often, and die only once. I can't imagine a stranger or more wonderful place to call home. Thank you, God, for not listening to the cookies when you came up with this place. 

I don't think I want to live in a planet that is run by cookies.

Even still...

I wonder where I'll be in three more months.

Up And Out: Theology For Assholes

When I was in high school, I heard a certain phrase quite often. I especially heard it the year that I went from being a lowly 5'2" to almost 6 feet. I have heard this phrase a few times since then, but it is no longer a compliment.

"You're getting bigger."

You see, there are two ways we can grow. We can either grow up or we can grow out.

 When we grow up, it is a wonderful thing. We become taller, more muscular, physically more able to handle what life throws our way. Everyone notices when we grow up, and it makes them proud, regardless of weather or not they had anything to do with the current state we find ourselves in.

When we grow out, it is the opposite. Growing out is unhealthy. It is an indicator of our indulgence. It doesn't look good. When people see that you're growing out, they ignore it, because it's not polite to mention that your excess is wearing you down from the outside. 

Today, I yelled at my roommate over something stupid. I called him an asshole. He doesn't deserve that. Ever. No one does. Especially someone of whom I have said that I couldn't love him more if he were my own brother. I apologized immediately, in my own stupid insufficient way. He said it was okay, and not to worry about it, then he left to go study. The thing is, I couldn't really forget about it. It bothered me so very much that I could just say something like that to someone I would call my brother. It's not like I have never used language like that before. My mouth is pretty much an open door most of the time. I couldn't shake it from my head. It kept replaying over and over again, and every time I heard the words I used, I couldn't believe myself. He came home two hours later, and I apologized again for how I treated him. He said not to worry about it again, that it was fine. I know him well enough to know weather or not he means it when he says not to worry about something. He meant it. I never want to call him that again.

So which was it? Up or out? Which way did I grow?

Have I grown taller, and stronger in my ability to care for others, that something that ordinarily wouldn't bother me could keep me bothered for hours? Or did I grow bigger, more bogged down and heavy with unnecessary self hatred that has been such a default reaction for me lately when I fail the people I care about? It's not like they're not used to it (there I go again). 

Truth is, I don't know. I hope some day that I can learn how to care better for those who have been placed in my influence without hating myself. For now, it seems like my life is a strange mix of the two. 

I'll need some exercise if I'll ever be able to make sense of this mess.

Getting Older

Why do we even bring children into this world? Is it because we're lonely? Because we want our lives to mean something? Seems pretty selfish to me. The world is not a very kind place to live.

I'm not talking about me. I'm not talking about me. Usually, I'm talking about me. Most of the things I like to talk about are about me, but today, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Jonathan.

I don't even know his last name. It's either Medina or Martinez, something like that. I run the after school program that is trying to teach him how to read. It isn't going very well. He's going to get older, weather he learns to read or not. 

Two months.

I have two months to get him reading at a level that is on par with his age group. He was a year behind at the beginning of the school year. If I bring him up one year, he'll still be a year behind. It'll just be a different year. 

It's not good enough. I keep telling myself to try harder to get through to him, but I just don't know how to do it. I think that me and his tutor are the only ones in his life that want him to go anywhere. My conversations with him go something like this:

"Why do I have to go to tutoring?"

"So you can learn how to read."

"Why do I have to know how to read?"

"So you can graduate."

"I don't wanna graduate."

"I'll bet your Mom and Dad want you to graduate."

"My Dad only went to first grade. Then he got a job."

"If you graduate, you can get a better job. You won't have to work at Taco Bell like I did in high school."

"You worked at Taco Bell? Cool! I want to work at Taco Bell."

It's just not good enough. I just can't be good enough to make them want anything. They're like jello. They'll become whatever is being put into them. They're going to work at Taco Bell. For all my efforts, they're not going to learn anything. I really wanted to be an agent for change with my life. But some days, we lose. We show up every day. We put everything me have into the game

-but we lose. I'm not writing this because I'm feeling sorry for myself, and my inefficient teaching methods. Some of us lose more than others. The world isn't very kind to little Mexican kids who can't read. That's something else that may never change.

Poem I Wrote While I Was Sick.

The 101 to the 46 to the 5, then the 210 until it hits the 57.

 

I’ve made friends with the signposts

I let the tell me what to do

All the colors of the rainbow

Pulling off like rest stops

Without gas stations

And where can I be filled again?

Another chance to watch faces floating by

In parade fashion,

Forgetting I was the one on display

Watch their lips turn colors of recognition

Speaking slowly as I crumble by

“What a nice young man”

I hope my daughters turn out to be just the way he is.”

Pausing before engaging in relationships

And not having sex with pretty girls.

And my friends have told me that I am not far from home

But I feel inclined once more

To lay down flat on this open road

Like all the other dogs that move too slow.

Who has sat in my passenger seat

To follow me home?

Though

I swear some day

I’ll find a set of watchful eyes

Disinclined

To fall asleep 

In my passenger seat

On the long winding road

That somehow

Someday

Brings me home.

Orange Chicken and Thom Yorke

I'm sick.

I'm trying with great difficulty to keep awake during open mic night at It's a Grind in La Mirada. Nobody wants to perform. What I really need right now is to eat some cheap Chinese food and listen to Radiohead.

I think I enjoy being sick. It makes me less accountable for my actions. Like I was some sort of social-awkardness super hero. I'm my own alter ego. 

Hyounjun says that I have multiple personalities that hate each other. Maybe that's it. I could see that. I often hide my keys from myself, or sabotage my own efforts to be a successful writer. Once, I even set my water glass on top of the refrigerator so that I could reach inside the refrigerator to get some ice, thus forcing myself to spill water on my own head.

Hmmm.

I don't have to think about this right now. 

I'm sick.