Did the truth make a killer out of a friend?

Here's a song I've really been loving lately. It's called Curse the Love Songs and it's by a group called the Hawk in Paris, which is made up of the lead singer of Jars of Clay and a couple people I don't know.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxdcLtTJ320

Have you ever stood out in the rain
Watched love grow cold and roll away
And in your heart feel the weight that things will never change
You're not alone

So curse the love song playing on the radio station
Curse the love song playing on the radio station

Have you thought you'd never breathe again
Did the truth make a killer out of friend
And in your heart feel the weight that things will never change
You're not alone

So curse the love songs playing on the radio station
Curse the love song playing on the radio station

Does the night, the night go on and on
It doesn't matter if you're awake 'cause you're going to sleep away the day
And in your heart theirs a weight and it doesn't go away
You're not alone

So curse the love songs playing on the radio station
Curse the love songs playing on the radio station
So curse the love songs playing on the radio station
Curse the love songs playing on the radio station

Have you ever stood out in the rain

Drained.

I am spent. Physically, emotionally, mentally. Work was stressful and draining, life is busy and to be honest unfulfilling, and I just feel scattered.

Most of this will be alleviated after a good night sleep but the shadow never seems to fade.

A change in the weather, a change in the blog

Woohoo for new blog background templates! Actually, that's not woohoo-worthy but whatever. It's Fall and the leaves are changing, the leaves are blowing off the trees, and I'm still a broken man with broken hands.

Not much going on in the Girl C situation. Lunch was really good last week but there hasn't been anything between us since. For the present I'm at the point of just saying that if she has any interest in at least spending time with me as a friend then she'll contact me 'cause I left the going-out-for-coffee ball in her court. I've been the guy who pushes for a relationship that isn't there many times before and I'm not doing that this time 'cause it's foolish, immature, and a waste of time.

Come to think of it, not much else is going on in my life right now. I work a decent bit, school is heating up, and that's pretty much it.

I think as I get older I'm realizing the value of relationships with people. The things rust and fade, the money gets spent or taken, and the memories remain in the past. It's the people that matter. I've found that I've made plans to eat lunch with lots of different people at different times in the past few weeks. It's almost as if my go to is "We should get lunch sometime." I guess that's not a bad thing.

I've gotta read two books of Paradise Lost tonight, so that'll be fun.

Good night, and good luck.

A moment of imperfect clarity

And not the Spoken album, though I am listening to it on Spotify solely for the sake of posting this blog.

So after lots and lots of time spent thinking through the whole Girl C situation and also talking to a leader in my life earlier today, I think I know what I'm going to do.

For years I've held a lot of fantasies, hopes, and ideals about what "love" is and should be based on tv sitcoms, movies, and music. Up until now, I understand the idea of love being something you have to fight for that doesn't come easy but I always had these ideas of the what-ifs of love. I'm having trouble explaining this. For example, I bought two tickets on Groupon to a corn maze that's about 30 minutes from here with the hope that whenever I asked Girl C out she'd say yes and things would be all candyland and sunshine and I'd take her there 'cause we could hold hands and talk and have a great night. Now, I'm not saying any of that is bad in and of itself and I still hold to the hope of some day having that sort of time with my future spouse (if I do get married that is) but all that is merely hearsay.

To better illustrate how I'm feeling, I'm just gonna copy/paste the text I sent to the guy who has been helping me with all this (warning: one "cuss" word used):
"I'm on the mountain" (this big hill by the local trash dump that I call the mountain for the epicness of it) "for the sunset and I've been thinking and I have realized that I have to sacrifice all the foolish hopes and fantasies of what a relationship is and could be/bring that I've gotten from growing up watching sitcoms and movies and I need to sacrifice all the bullshit and lies I've told myself for a chance at something real and genuine. so yeah. gonna try and get to know her slowly even tho in my head i had lots of hopes and plans already. God is God and I am not."

So what I'm going to do is have lunch with her tomorrow as planned and just tell her that I want to get to know her.

"I know it's not you my dear, I know it's not you. I know it's not you my dear, it's the nothing that kills."

I took a chance tonight. The turnout was bittersweet. Now, I just don't know in what way to move forward.


Basically, I asked Girl C out, she said yes but later told me that she doesn't have romantic interest in me, just friendship.

This might be the first time I ever blog and journal simultaneously.

I just don't know what to do. I realize that anything worth having is worth fighting for and so if I want to win her heart I have to make an effort, but at the same time I feel like I might be going on false hope as always. I didn't have an expectation that she likes me back but I had this hope that there was interest because she seems to joke with me more than other guys and we went to the Fleet Foxes show together and all these other little things that made me think there was a connection.

The really tough thing is that Girl C was the very first girl I actually believed could like me in return. Every other girl I've ever liked always treated either like dirt or like I was only a guy with no romantic potential but I felt like Girl C and I connected and she's different than any other girl I've met and yet I'm nothing more than a friend to her.

I guess I'm just struggling with what to do now. I care about her and want to get to know her. We set up a lunch meeting (I'm not gonna call it a date because as the Jon Foreman lyric goes, "It takes two to go to war but only one to fall in love" (not that I'm in love with her or anything that major)) for Friday and I don't know if I should cancel or go. On the one hand, I want to go because just spending time with her would be amazing and I'm not trying to push some big romance on her so the simplicity would work. Plus I want to hope that maybe we'll get to hang out and the whole Ben Gibbard "I Will Possess Your Heart" will happen and romantic love will blossom from friendship. That's sort of what I wanted in the first place but I was hoping that there'd be at least a foundational interest.  However, on the other hand I feel like going would postpone the inevitable of me having to move on from yet another girl who had no interest in me.

I just don't know. Do I move on, settle for being friends and nothing more, or hang on a thread of hope for something more?

"God is God and I am not, I can only see a part of the picture he's painting. God is God and I am man, so I'll never understand it all, for only God is God. "

"The fear, the fear is what keeps us here."

Fear is something I've wrestled with my entire life. When I was a kid, it was fear of other kids I didn't know who were different than I was. This came in the form of kids on my soccer team who were raised differently than I was and were of a less kind behavioral mold. When I was a teenager, it was two things mainly. First and foremost, it was a fear of being in the spotlight. It was a fear of public speaking or having to lead in some way or to stand up for something on my own. Second, it was a fear of girls. I don't mean "Ah! XX genes, run away, run away!" No, for me it was more of a fear of how to talk to them, treat them, and interact with them. For a number of years, I would have an internal freak out every single time a girl in the youth group would hug me. Thoughts of "Where should I put my hands? If I put them there will she get mad or be creeped out?" and others were a plague upon me in middle and high school.
Now in college, I deal with bits and pieces of all the prior fears but a larger fear looms over me. I'm a very insecure person and in trying to get to know Girl C (I've been texting and tweeting her off&on the past two days), I am absolutely terrified of talking to much and pushing her away. I would love to talk with her for hours and hours to get to know her. Last night we were texting sporadically and I would've loved to have kept talking to her all night long even though I was tired and had to be up at 6:15 this morning. However, I texted her after I got out of my monday night class and she didn't reply, so that was the end of that. I say all that because I'm afraid that if I text her again or tweet her today (I tweeted her something a little while ago and then deleted it out of fear) that she might get annoyed or think I'm being pushy or overly friendly.

I think my biggest fear in regards to people is becoming obsolete. I'm afraid of everyone just saying "We don't need or want you anymore" and me being stranded in this world so far from home by myself. Now, it's a pretty unrealistic fear because God has promised to never leave or forsake me and I think that he loves and blesses us with people in our lives that we don't deserve. However, the fear still remains and it has come on full force lately in regards to Girl C. I guess my worst fear would be to ask her out and she respond with, "No, I don't have any interest in you and you have nothing of worth." I think one of my problems is that I have trouble finding my worth in Christ and instead look to others for it. I am a fool.

I feel like this isn't something I can talk about with a lot of people because most people would say something like, "Oh, God works for the good of those who love him, so don't worry." While that's true, that does not mean that God will necessarily bless his people with the specific blessings they desire. God's working for my good. I get that. That doesn't mean I stand a chance with Girl C. God remains good but it's the unknown that gives fear a foothold.

The scariest thing

I think the scariest thing to have to live with in my life is knowing that I can't earn a single good thing. I can help friends, love people I don't know, be a good student, work hard, and build a tower of good deeds, and yet I can't earn salvation. I can't earn my way to Heaven. I can't earn people's love and friendship. I can't win Girl C's heart. No matter what I do, the things worth attaining in this life are all gifts. We are beggars all.

Pertaining to trying to win/earn Girl C's heart, I wrote a little line a week or two ago.
" I don’t deserve you

And I cannot earn you

Fourteen years is just not enough"

Next time!

Short and sweet post here. Regarding this whole situation, I'm gonna fight my impulse to overthink and worry and just take the situation one step at a time and hope for the best and trust God. I'm also going to pray for Girl C, something I've never really committed to when liking a girl before. So, yeah.

Talking Through Glass / I want to believe

Last night I went to the Thrice show and it was awesome. I moshed to Silhouette, sang/screamed 90% of the lyrics sung, and had a blast. Then after, the lead singer Dustin, one of my personal heroes, played a short acoustic set and then had a meet&greet and I said hi, got his autograph, and talked to him for a minute about C.S. Lewis, one of both of our favorite writers. It was sweet.
Anyway, I'll use that to segue into what's on my mind at the moment. Tonight, my care group went to the college group leader's house for dinner and it was a really great time. However, Girl C didn't get there until way late and I hardly got to talk to her and while we all joked around about stuff, I didn't get any sort of real time with her. The segue I'm making is that I've been feeling what is described in the lyrics of Talking Through Glass by Thrice. It starts out with "It never turns out right for me and you, no matter how I try to see it through." Then the song continues onto a disconnect in a relationship that ends in the need to break up and move on. I don't really relate to that part but for the past couple weeks I've really been looking for opportunities to get to know Girl C and nothing seems to turn out right. If I'm off work on a Wednesday for care group or Sunday for Lift Groups, she doesn't come or leaves early or comes late or something. I work every other Sunday/Wednesday so my chances are slim as is and now it's like I'm "trying to catch the wind."

I want to believe that she's worth feeling like there's no chance but still trying. Back in the song there's a line that goes, "Though I've no hope I'll ever find someone like you" and I don't fully feel like that because I hardly know this girl but I feel a different, more real sort of feeling towards her and it's the first time I've felt this particular way before and it's scary and confusing. Sometimes I just feel like all the major things I desire in life are just implausible. I dunno. I've lost my train of thought by having multiple conversations and listening to the new Ryan Adams album, so until next time...

"I want a girl who'll laugh for no one else"

It's been an odd day. I woke up, did some reading and stuff, went to work at 3 for two hours and then clocked out and went to Southeastern's cookout to help there. That took about two and a half hours and it was bittersweet. Sweet 'cause I got to help out and had a good time but bitter because I didn't get to talk to Girl C at all. I saw her once or twice helping out in different places but I never got the chance (had the courage) to just go up and talk to her. After helping clean up and then having a relay race with the rest of the staff and volunteers (except Girl C who left early) on the inflatables (which my team won), I started to get the feeling of lonely sorrow, the kind that makes me want to listen to Brand New and sulk about how "I'll never get anything right" and "I'm on my own." I listened to them on my drive home and got home and decided I'd watch Crazy Heart 'cause I've been saving it for a night when I need a pick me up. Well, I got on Twitter and saw that Girl C had tweeted me a teasing comment about something I had said, so that brightened by day immensely. Then I saw a trailer on the Crazy Heart disc for this movie called Adam, which is about a guy with asperger's syndrome who meets a girl and has trouble relating and connecting with her but it looked happy and all and since I relate to the whole not-connecting thing, I decided to go rent that. Long story short, I drove to Blockbuster listening to Weezer (hence the lyrics for blog title), found the movie and also bought Toy Story 3 for $8, so that's awesome. I'm a much better mood now as I start the movie. I guess sometimes the momentary sorrow just has to be outlasted.

So for three start gatherings (or events?) I've hoped to try and see / talk to Girl C and for the third straight time she's either not been there or has been busy and left early. I've got one more shot to talk to her this week and that's Wednesday night. A midterm lies between then and now, but thankfully so does tomorrow night's Thrice show :)

I guess there's not much else to say, so I think i'll focus on this movie and end here. Or maybe here. Here? Ok fine, hear.

In love with the potential

Tonight while walking to and from Southeastern's library after my Personal Finance hybrid ended for the night, I was thinking about U2's City of Blinding Lights and the things I hope for in a future relationship. Specifically I was thinking of the potential that could happen with Girl C, how we could go for frozen yogurt, get chick-fil-a, take walks in the nature park and around campus, and all this other stuff. This got me thinking of a line in Death Cab for Cutie's song "I Will Possess Your Heart" that says "How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me. It's like a book elegantly bound but in a language that you can't read."
I've "fallen" for the potential of a relationship before. With Girl A, I was so hopeful at all the potential we had that it pushed what I thought I was feeling farther than what I was really feeling. I really don't want that with Girl C. I'm thinking of this a lot more seriously than I have ever thought of a relationship before and with that comes the battle over realism and romanticism. At heart I'm a romantic but there's miles of realist track between my heart and my mind. That said, that's a post for another day since I have my hybrid in the early morning.

"It's never quite worth what you give up to get it"

This post is going to be brutally honest, but this is my makeshift confessional.


So I just watch Born On the Fourth of July, a movie about an All-American teen who goes to fight in Vietnam, gets paralyzed, and then goes through all the aftermath. It's part of Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy and I liked it a lot more than Platoon. Platoon seemed to focus on the horror and evil that man is capable of in the face of war, whereas BOtFoJ focused on the loss of Tom Cruise's character's loss of innocence. It's this loss of innocence that really struck a chord with me. At the beginning of the film, there is a scene of Tom Cruise's character as a kid playing a war game with his friends. From there until the end of the film, the main character slowly watches his innocence and idealism deteriorate through battles, death, paralysis, hatred, empty sex, drunkenness, and the culture clash over the Vietnam War. It's a pretty sobering film and while I didn't love it and will probably take it to Ed McKay's, it was worth the watch.


Now, for the brutal honesty part. I'd really like to write a song about the loss of innocence because for years I've felt a similar deterioration by way of my sinful heart and today I felt it even more. There was a part of the film where Tom Cruise's character goes to stay in Mexico with a bunch of other vets. Here, they drunk, gamble, fight, and have sex with prostitutes. Because the main guy is paralyzed from the chest down, he's unable to feel anything, so sex offers nothing for him. However, because he was recently rejected by his family, his loneliness and desire for connection lead him to paying for a prostitute to have sex with him. The scene in question was not overly sexual but there was explicit nudity and while I knew I should fast forward or close my eyes or something, I chose to keep my eyes focused on what was not mine. For a while I've known that if I ever have a son, I'm not going to be all "porn is bad!!!!" but I'm going to explain a variation of that and say that when you see something, you can't unsee it. You can't forget it. After seeing that scene, my mind started to think horrible, sick, awful things about people I know and care about. I hate(d) myself for thinking those thoughts and I cursed myself and those thoughts but they can't be undone or unthought. In my heart, I've sinned against people in awful ways. This is my loss of innocence. I don't know how to put into words the shame and hatred I feel towards this sickness in my mind. I've thought the most vile thoughts about people I claim to care about. I am the villain of the story.

Purify me, God. Purge me of myself. Destroy me.