Wednesday, December 18, 2013

It's Been a While

The other night, as I left class, my eyes were drawn to the moon.  The little scoop of the crescent sat in the sky, as if it was hiding the rest of what the moon had to offer.  Just below the crescent point, there was a bright light.  I normally never look twice at a distant bright light in the sky, as it is normally just another airplane making its descent into the Miami International Airport.  This time though, my eyes were fixed on it.  Something about that light, the way it sat there, floating just below the scantily clad skinny moon, flirting with the sky.

The last four months have flown by.  I have had a lot of thoughts during that period of time, but with all of the stuff going on in my life, it was hard for me not to justify my inactivity on here.  Please bare with me, as I dissect my thoughts, and lay them out here.

During the summer, I felt like I was getting cold feet.  I received a call from my father, and it seemed urgent.  We spoke briefly about my future, mainly my choice to return to school to get my Master's.  He voiced his opinion, and expressed his concern.  He informed me that I should weigh my options, evaluate the costs, and understand the realistic value behind getting the degree.  Immediately becoming anxious, my mind began to race.  Questions circled; "Should I be doing this?" "Does it make sense?" "What will I do after I graduate?" "Is there any REAL value in getting a Master's in Sport Administration?" "Doesn't the University have enough pull?"  Then I received another phone call from a 305 area code.  The voice on the other end had great news.  A notification was being given to me, as I qualified and was accepted into the scholarship internship program at the university.  My confidence was lifted and I already committed to attend, but I was still in question of the choice to go.  Last August, as I packed my backpack for the final time in undergraduate school, a promise was made that I would never go back to school as long as I lived.  I love to learn, and am intrigued by a lot of things, but I suppose I get lost in the intimidation of what school brings to the table.  I am lost in thought, as my phone nearly vibrates off the counter.  I see several emails coming through, notifying me that the loan applied for has been approved.  As I pulled my socks onto my feet, I recognized that the feeling was being lifted.

It has been probably about 2 months now, but I was having these odd dreams.  I can't recall the entirety of any of them, but each one included a semi-familiar face.  My ex-girlfriend and I haven't spoken in about a year and a half.  Following some dumb decisions I had made, I can understand her distance.  That's the weird part of having her in my dreams though.  We haven't talked in a long while, and I haven't seen her in an even longer period of time.  I decided it was time to patch some things up.  A couple minutes, and a carefully composed email later, I clicked send.  It was merely an apologetic email, followed by well wishes.  What followed shocked me the most; I was ignored/blocked/de-friended on all social media platforms.  Oh, and I never received a response to the email that I am 100% sure was read.  You know, I have had plenty of talks with people about the issue of feelings that I have for her, but nothing has been resolved internally.  I have come to the realization that I made a mistake with how I handled the situation.  At the time I believed I was acting rationally (which is laughable now to me, because as I continued to see her best friend, I continued to think about how much I missed her, and how bad of a replacement her friend was).  But now it is different.  Maybe the 21 month period since we last spoke matured me.  I feel like I grow on a daily basis, but this sort of just came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face with wisdom.  I realized that I lost so much that spring, out of selfish gain.  Instead of looking out for the well-being of everyone involved in the situation, I acted out of impulse, and made an irrational decision.  So, here I sit, with little to no communication with her best friend, ZERO contact with her, or any of the friends I made while dating her, and just last month apologized to the youth pastor at the church, becoming friends again.

I was at work, chatting with a co-worker, when she brought up this phone application called Tinder.  I had never heard of it before, so she filled me in on what it was all about. "...it's a phone app that you swipe right or left, depending on if you like or dislike the person that is on the screen." TRUE. So, you swipe left and right, yes or no, based on what the person looks like, with minimal (at best) information about the person. Sounds about right. It seems to be like everything else in the present dating scene. Really minimal real contact, a lot of judgment passed, nothing known about the person, looking more for some sort of momentary sexual satisfaction. What does that solve though? Does it accomplish the mission to satisfy the desire of having companionship? NO! All these dating sites and dating apps are merely ways to easily hookup with people (I think that's stating the obvious).

So what it is that drives us to the idea that something could work with a random stranger?

The idea of having a girlfriend floats around in my head. Idea of having a girlfriend...who am I? I am similar to everyone else on this planet, I suppose. I desire to have human contact and human companionship. If I don't have it, I feel this emptiness/void. It doesn't make much sense to me, why I desire it so much. Is it what the media has created; this fairy-tale world of how relationships are supposed to be? I've had enough of it! It keeps my mind in this seesaw motion, between wanting a relationship, and not. I am torn between two worlds; one that desires to have pure companionship and relationships, and one that dismisses the idea that it is essential to life.

And then there's the void...

Void (n.): a completely empty space.

Fortunately, the void that I feel is filled, daily. I simply [sometimes] need a reminder of what I have in life. A reminder of how merciful God is, how graceful Jesus is, and how much my life has been impacted by people who are placed in it for the purpose of helping me to learn. And where does this girlfriend fit in my life? Somewhere, sometime, at some point in the future. I can't set the plan for myself and expect things to work out perfectly. I am not an expert manipulator (not even in my own life).

I just have to remind myself that if I am patient, the time will come eventually.

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." -Albert Einstein