my careless contagion

When all is said and done, these pages are a microcosm. So much love. So many questions. So many lines intersecting, reaching out, connecting, diverging, close but never leading anywhere. How many millions of love letters has mankind written? How many lines went unsaid, never acted upon? I wrote my lines. I'm content knowing I tried, loved, waited, did everything I was supposed to do. What they did with my love was never in my hands. I faithfully loved until doors closed forever. Love is beautiful, but it must be chosen, accepted, brought in from the rain. Mine was discarded like an ill-timed valentine, ink bleeding in the rain, tossed about by the wind, wet and matted in a gutter.  Here, loved turned to hate. Hate turned to tears. Tears turned to forgiveness. Forgiveness turned to prayer. Prayer ended in upturned hands to a knowing God and a brokenness that cannot be healed. All the things that were once in my hands are gone. I am left with questions that stretch to the horizon....

This is not a joke, though some may laugh. My blog feels like a joke, but it is a place to pause and reflect or, in this case, examine. And maybe find a solution. Betty and Veronica are characters in the Archie comics universe, which I grew up with. Archie is a ginger buffoon, forever caught between competing love interests of two girls. I use the names Betty and Veronica because the girls in question have the same name. I cannot, for the life of me, choose one. It's distressing. I pushed both away at different times, and with the same result. They are unshakable, and I like them both.  Who cares, right? Bro is cooking. Here's why this matters. There is some weird, perverse voodoo with this blog, where, if I write about a woman, she often disappears. So, in order to solve the problem of having two girls interested in me (first time for everything), I will write about them and see who disappears. Call it a test. At this point, I don't care how it is resolved. I go back and f...

The day was hot, hotter than usual. My mind was running so fast for so long, time got away from me. I found myself driving away from everything and straight to your beckoning shores. Lucky to find a space, I parked, pausing to catch my breath, my heart beating fast with anticipation. Quickly, I walked to the sandy shore. Some were sunbathing. Kids laughed in the water. A mother closely watched her toddler in the shallow water. Finding a bare spot on the sand, I emptied my pockets, wrapped everything in my shirt, laying it by my shoes.  I desperately want to see you, feel you, jump into you like the waters spreading before me. Without thinking, I ran into the surf, a childlike smile spreading across my face, until my knees couldn't clear the surface. Diving in, I felt the full embrace of your waters, tasted the salinity of your warm waves, and darted back to the surface where I opened my eyes wide at the big, blue sky. I was in you, and all the way.  Sometimes I ache for you, w...

The movie I Still Believe (2020) is important for a few reasons. It highlights things every Christian goes through if they follow the Lord. You will have loss. You will have questions. You will be broken. If you are following God but haven't experienced those yet, don't let my words deter you. It is worth it, dear, if you let God redeem those moments. And it will make sense someday. I rewatched the movie recently, this time with my son. The first time I watched, I was house-sitting for the woman I wrote about so much on this blog, the one who decided to exit my life last year for good and forever. When I watched it the first time, I had the thought God might allow the same sort of thing to happen to me with the thing I loved the most in this world, just as he did Jeremy Camp, who lost his wife to cancer. To watch the movie again was surreal, as it took me back to that moment. What transpired since that evening roughly two years ago when I relaxed with the family dog in the liv...

You, me, and the sea. I feel you there at the shore, like you are waves lapping at the sand, sometimes quietly, other times more insistent. There is a power in you, drawing me back, making me stay, causing me to sit and stare out over you. Imagining you. Conjuring you. Your colors are emeralds and blues of various hues, and a depth that recedes into the darkest water. I like to meet you in the newness of morning. When I walk up to your edge, your warm waters welcome, then dare me to step in further. I comply until I am in over my head and you are salty on my lips, dripping off my eyelashes and running down my face. Submerged in you, I smile at the sky.  I met you in the year that was my worst, yet you made it worthwhile. There was a golden quality to you, like the sparkle in a child's eyes undimmed by the world. It was like looking at the sun. I had to close my eyes. Life intrudes, but I was drawn back to your shore. The air is different with you. The sky is bigger. The light brigh...