my careless contagion

By no means am I old but sometimes feel that way. I'm not on any medications. Am fairly active. God blessed me with good health. Still, I've been around a while and sometimes feel the weight of that. Here follow some things that painfully point out the fact that I've been on this planet a while. In case you wonder just how long, most would say I'm from Generation X. You know, the ones who grew up feral. If some of this sounds familiar, as if I've already talked about it, well, that makes sense. That happens when you get older. Grab a hot chocolate and pull up a chair. Let's get it on.  1. Young people. They have a lot of confidence that comes chiefly from being young. Just wait until the world makes you cry until you realize you know absolutely nothing, then get back to me. That's not bitterness speaking. But you don't know what's holding the world up until you realize it's certainly not you. Younger people have different expectations and don...

Can we try? Can we wade into this together, holding on to one another? This is such a beautiful thing. Please don't worry. Let's enjoy the journey. We don't have to see the whole way. We can trade knowing the future for knowing we're in this together. You and me and yours and mine. Let's do it. Let this thing we don't know what to do with grow from uncertainty to something we can't imagine living without. Please take my hand. I don't want to do this with anyone else.  This thing. It grows. It can take over our hearts silently. We wake and feel something undeniable blossoming within. Let's do this together and call it what we want. No one says it has to look a certain way or progress along a certain path. It's ours. We can take our time. We can press pause. We can jump ahead. Just as long as we do it together. We can meet. Talk. Lay in silence, you in my arms, and me keeping time to the sound of your gentle breathing and the sweet rhythm of your h...

You could call this a New Year's post: a bit of a look back and also standing on the edge of a new year, hoping for the best.  Let's start from right here, right now. I can't adequately explain what I'm going through because I lack perspective. Anytime we go through something that feels like change we momentarily lose perspective. That's why I felt the need to temporarily isolate myself from influences such as social media and greatly diminished my computer use. (No, it hasn't affected my ability to send my mom memes.) What I can say is something in me broke, leaving my attitude toward God and others changed. I have a strangely calm feeling similar to dissociation but without the disconnectedness. I feel tremendous peace. God showed me why I often attempt to do such hard things against all odds. Hard to explain. Best to save the explanation for later. What I know is it feels important and am committed to doing my part so God can finish the work He started. Doing...

I talked to the girl I love for a couple of hours yesterday. I love her dearly. It's impossible to express how much. One thing that became apparent years ago after she came back into my life (more than six years now) was how much she went through. The evidence was there. One of the first things she told me was she felt like a doormat. And then it was revealed she was neglected, abused, and cheated on. My heart went out to her because I endured much the same. I really hope she doesn't see this post in a negative light. It is a love letter of a different sort. I want her to know I will always be there for her and will do everything I can to protect her heart.  I don't know how deep the wounds go. Something tells me she put on a cheerful front for so long she doesn't even know. She is so used to distrusting she has to fight through her protective mechanisms and inclination to see my words and actions in a negative light. I pray to see her blossom and realize intimacy with ...

Rejection played a big role in my life. It doesn't have to be intentional. People passively reject others all the time. It doesn't have to be something we even think about in order to reject someone. Do I think everyone who rejected me wanted to hurt me? No, in fact, I don't think any of them wanted to hurt me. It was unintentional. But, if I perceive something as rejection, it is rejection, regardless. I can't tell someone I didn't hurt them if they felt hurt by something I did. With that out of the way, here are a few things I learned about rejection. This is only my opinion.  One of the worst things about the rejection I felt from my family (and I heard this from others who experienced the same) was I felt the need to change somehow. As in, they wouldn't reject me if I was someone else or changed my behavior. I think this is perhaps how I ended up with a different personality than my birth order would suggest. My natural personality is laid back and silly, fu...

Notes on a girl. Much of the information is several years or even decades old. This is how I remember her. I don't want to misrepresent her but also feel an explanation is in order for why I persisted in chasing her so long. Some of this is speculative. I will always see her as perfect. What I seek to show is the woman I fell in love with, the woman I chased, and the woman I still love. She always seemed out of my league. I never sought to bring her to my level but, rather, rise to hers. (Started writing this in August. I truly loved writing about her.) I knew her since we were 10 years old when I moved to her town over Christmas break. I recall teasing her about her hair, which she braided one day, calling her Laura Ingalls Wilder, perhaps because I used to watch Little House on the Prairie and one of the girls had braided hair. She was always near, maybe because we were often seated by last names and ours both began with N. She seemed responsive and friendly. I was in a new schoo...