Unemployment sucks...(19 days and counting)

So I have just finished my first day of unemployment and I must say that it really sucked.  First and foremost I slept like absolute crap last night.  I'm not sure if I was so excited about not having to wake up early or my brother's spicy chili but I was getting up every few hours and I was not rested this morning. It kind of reminded me of Christmas when I was younger.  I would always find it hard to fall asleep and then I would keep waking up all the while trying to fall back to sleep so that morning would come more quickly.  If that was the case for last night then I really screwed myself over because I wanted to sleep in but couldn't.  Not to mention I woke up at 6:00AM anyways so it was a crazy night.

This morning I had to drive my brother to his second official day at his new job.  Since he is not currently in possession of a driver's license it was my responsibility to get him to work on time, which of course we were.  After I dropped him off I flirted with the idea of continuing north to Woburn and drop in on Dave at his new warehouse.  But I decided to head home instead where I promptly parked my butt on the couch and began to watch Sportscenter.  After watching an hour of that I decided to make it a movie Monday because I went into today hoping to do absolutely nothing.  I then proceeded to watch two movies and fall asleep during a third.  

What I realized that while this has been a very lazy day I feel worthless and like I missed out on something.  I guess I had become so used to the same schedule and routine that now that it is all over this new found freedom kind of sucks.  My fear with this unstructured time is that I will do nothing and before I know it the days will have slipped by.  My plan for tomorrow is to sit down and sort out some of the long range goals and necessary tasks that will help me be prepared for my trip.  I have 19 days to really tie everything up so that I can have that clean slate in time for the trip.  I am looking forward to having dinner tomorrow with some friends.  There is also a great opportunity Thursday night and I am looking forward to what that may bring.  I am hoping something very good.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...

Whenever I hear that line from the song Closing Time by Semisonic it always gets me thinking about the changes that I have been preparing for, for the last year and a half.  It is so true that while I may be forlorn at letting go but it is in letting go that I am able to start anew.  Yesterday I said goodbye to all the people I worked with at GS and closed the chapter, a six year long chapter, and I am now ready to prepare for my new beginning.

As I had mentioned before I faced yesterday with some trepidation, knowing full well that this was a bit of a mixed blessing.  I had been looking forward to leaving the stress and the long hours behind me but I knew I would miss the people.  And true to form, that is exactly how everything unfolded.  However, if my last day was supposed to be relaxing and easy, my employers didn't get the memo because I worked on my last day.  we were so behind in getting our inventory broken down, scanned in, and up on shelves that for the last three days I was in the warehouse lending a hand to try and get caught up.  But yesterday we were fortunate to have some extra people and we busted ass non-stop for close to eight hours.  It was so humid yesterday that all I had to do was walk around and I was already sweating.  By the end of the day I was tried, dirty, and in desperate need of a shower but we went above and beyond my expectations as to how much we would get done.

I woke up this morning, the sun was shining and a gentle breeze coming through my window and I realized, I didn't need to go to work today.  I don't think it will sink in until Monday, but I am now currently unemployed...and it feels weird.  I have often thought to myself that others are seeing what I am doing and must think I am crazy to be walking away from a job with benefits in this fragile economic times.  Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy for doing this, but I know that I am pulled this way and I cannot ignore.  I am continuing to put my trust in God and praying that with this end I will be able to embark on this new beginning.

Time will tell...

All too often we are faced with decisions that we must make.  Sometimes they are simple choices between what I should wear out tonight to what should I order for dinner.  Other times they can have much more far reaching consequences that can redirect the very course that our lives are taking.  I have made my choice, stuck with it and I think that in the end time will prove that I have made the right choices, at least this time around anyways.

It has been almost a full month since my last post, though not like anyone would notice because no one reads this but me.  I think that I needed that time away.  Not necessarily time away from writing, but time to continue to work on myself as I prepare for my trip to Berkeley.  I have continued to let go of the baggage that has been holding me back.  I have let go of the relationships that are no longer supportive of me and what i am trying to accomplish.  The pieces of the puzzle that is my life have been carefully crafted and are now being put in place.  Over time as each piece is placed the picture will become clearer.  I have worked hard to get where I am today.  I sacrificed any semblance of a social life in order to finish my undergraduate degree just so that I could begin the ordination process, because you have to have a degree.  I often chose to participate in other activities that my friends were not involved in because I knew that not only did I personally enjoy them but that they would provide me with very beneficial experiences that I could call upon at a later date.  I have made my choices and I am sticking by them, no matter the cost.

Over the past month I have continued to wrap things up.  I am less than a week away from leaving work and closing a chapter of my life that has been extremely transformative.  When I walked into GS almost six years ago, I was broken and trying to put my life back together.  I had just come back from a failed relationship and experience in Ohio.  I was lacking routine, ambition, and confidence in myself.  I even believed that ordination wasn't ever going to be an option because going back to school seemed so damn impossible.  What I did not realize on that sunny, but cool November afternoon in 2005, was that I was walking into something that would not only help me put my life back on track but also help me fulfill my dream.  So as Friday approaches I know that I am going to have mixed feelings about this departure because the job is wearing me down, but the people are absolutely amazing.

I have also now made the decision to travel with the other postulant from the diocese, Jeff, and his girlfriend, whose name I am completely blanking on right now...oops my bad.  I will go into more details about him and how we ended up together for this grand adventure at a later date, but I think that it is going to be awesome nonetheless.  I was hoping that my little brother would be able to ride with me out to Cali, but he just got a job and it will be impossible for him to join me.  While I am sad for myself at not being able to share this with him, I am happy that he has a ob and will be able to help support the family, so I will be heading out west with Jeff.

I have always believed the adage, "actions speak louder then words," or put another way "what you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."  That last quotation comes from Emerson and I truly believe in what he is trying to say.  It is easy to recognize and talk about something then it is to actually act upon it.  It is easy to say well if I were that person I would have done things differently without giving any thought as to how you really would have acted had you been there.  I am tired of hearing people talk and see nothing come of it, so I have made my decision to say what I mean and live what I say.  The next three years will serve as an opportunity for me to build a strong foundation upon which I hope that I can help ignite that spark for real change.  Standing behind your decisions is not easy.  Standing tall in the midst of adversity is difficult.  Doing what is right is never easy, but I know that God is with me and if He is with me who can be against me?  Are you willing to let your actions speak for you?  Are you ready to lead by example?  Time will tell.

When I jumped off, I had a bucket full of thoughts...

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.  When I started doing this a month ago, the role of this blog was to fulfill a dual purpose.  First and I believe foremost, this blog is to serve as the opportunity for others, who may or may not be interested, to have an opportunity to stay in contact with me as I journey across the country to California.  I figure that since I got rid of Facebook there is no other medium by which others would be able to follow along, and I do intend to take photos and post them along with my adventures, of which I hope there are many, so why not do this.  The second purpose that I see this blog serve, is that of an opportunity for me to examine the path that has led me to this turning point in my life, which I hope will provide some insight into why it is I am pursuing this but also to hash out something that I may still need to work on in my own life.  So far so good, though I am now a month in and no one is following me, then again I haven't told anyone, so that will have to change.

When I said that you have to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it happened to me without even realizing it.  I have taken these last few months as an opportunity to rid my self of the anything that has been or might hold me back and prevent me from fully living into this new phase.  This transition is huge for me, monumental, ginormous even, because this is something that I have thought about and hoped for and worked for, for so many years and to see it finally come to fruition is actually a bit mind bottling.  So I want to make sure that I am as prepared as I can be in order to learn, live, love, and laugh for the next three years as I gain the necessary tools and experiences that will become the foundation of my ministry.  My intention has been to rid myself of this baggage and for the most part it has been fairly easy.  I will be leaving my job soon, so there goes all that stress and long hours.  Sure I will miss the guys, because it was by far the best company I have ever worked for, but I know that my talents should directed elsewhere.  I am finally leaving my house and the daily routine which is nice but it is time to go out on my own and see what i can do with this opportunity, will I sink or swim???  There are so many other things that will be coming to an end and there is much that can be taken away from all of this, and its not like I am not coming back in three years, so this isn't goodbye for most just a see you later type deal.  Goodbye has always been seemed so permanent, as if you didn't know if you would never see the person again.

However I did have to say goodbye to one thing and it turned out to be the hardest thing to let go of.  I knew that I had to let go because I didn't want to head out to California with no definition as to what and how our relationship was going to work out.  I needed confirmation, proof even, that one way or the other our relationship was going somewhere or it needed to be ended.  For most people the hardest part is to first let go.  I mean it is easy to see when something needs to change, but actually taking the initiative to make the change is so much harder.  But  I was lucky.  I was fortunate in that I didn't have to be the push that made this move because she did it for me.  She gave me that window of opportunity to let go, but I had to jump off and seize this opportunity or watch this baggage riding with me out to seminary and be a distraction.  There were feelings that were deep that said don't jump, just wait it out and see what might happen, but I can't live like that anymore.  So I let go of the safety that is found in things and people that are familiar, and jumped off into the unknown.

I never got to actually say goodbye...but I think we both know that is exactly what this is.

I am the stone that the builder refused...

I deliberately took a long period of time off from getting into a groove with this new found blogging.  I need this time off to do some work on myself.  I needed this time to do some serious reflection and try to gain some perspective on how to move forward.  It is so easy with this new age of social media and the internet to be able to communicate and express one's thoughts and feelings but the inherent downside to this flow of conscious thought is over sharing.  I used to be on Facebook and  I would see it all the time.  People would post the most random things and sometimes very personal things and it is always been my fear of having something out there that might come to haunt me later.  I would hate to miss out on or opportunity or be excluded from something based on a post that was taken out of context or a picture that could be taken the wrong way.  This is the reason I took the time off.  What I was experiencing was something that rocked me to my very core.  That has happened only a few times in my life and they were not very pleasant circumstances.  I didn't want to get on here and blab away and work through my issues only to find that I offend someone or say something that I shouldn't.  Sometimes discretion is overlooked when doing things in haste.

When you lose something that has been an integral part of your life for so long it not so easy to shake it off and get back up on your feet again.  Often I find myself wandering into those places in my heart to try and resurrect those memories only to find it be bittersweet because that is all they are, just memories.  Nothing will bring back that reality, it has come and it has gone.  The danger is living only in those memories while the world around us passes by.  I found that I may have been doing just that, holding onto memories of someone who just wasn't that person anymore.  After some long nights and difficult days the veil has been lifted from my eyes.

When we are cut that deep we never fully heal.  Instead trying to go back to "the way things were" you ave to move forward and you learn to live without that light in your life.  We must constantly be moving forward and there will, and I emphasize that, there will be better days.  But when all is said in done a little part of me is lost too, there is no denying that.  What I have found to be a rock in these past few weeks is my prayer.  Instead of keeping everything all jumbled up inside I offer it up to God and I know that he will give me the strength to continue.  He will take away that pain if we let Him.  Having that regular time and conversation with God has allowed me to see things from a different lens, to see that i may have my flaws, my weaknesses, my struggles, but that this is all part of being human.  I may no longer be chosen to be apart of her life, I may be the stone that the builder has refused, but I know that God has something in store for me, somehting grand and that I will become the chief cornerstone in all my imperfect glory.

"I can resist anything but the temptation from you." - Part 2

I have taken some time since my last post deliberately as I wanted to make sure that I had some time to think about what it is exactly I wanted to say.  I firmly believe that God puts people into our lives for certain reasons.  Whether it is for a momentary chance encounter, for a lifetime, or anything in between, I believe that there is something that can be taken away from all of our encounters.  When we engage in relationships with others there is a mutual flow of support and encouragement that will uplift the other and allow us to live more fully.  Perhaps it is because of our human nature, but when there is a breakdown in a relationship with someone we have a hard time recognizing the failures of the relationship and when we must simply let go.  This has happened to me in the past and is unfolding again, and sometimes I feel lost, confused, and don't know where to turn, so I turn to God.

 I am currently immersed in a situation that has me struggling yet again with this very question, do i let her go?  A relationship that I have had is clearly coming to an end and what makes it so much more complicated is that it was an intensely close relationship that was at one point romantic and I would venture to say "best friends."  While there was no formal definition for our relationship because of the sheer distance between us, I still believed that there was something there and that something might work out.  I was setting myself up for failure and a hard fall down.  It is clear that there is still something still going on between us but it has been made clear that she has moved on and that there was never any intention on her part to make this relationship work.  Fear of the unknown prevents us from taking that first step that could lead to something wonderful or at worst a mistake.  But if we are too scared to even take that step, that leap of faith, then the opportunity passes us by and we will never know what could have been by opting for the comfort of the familiar or the easy.  She says she wants to stay connected and that maybe somewhere down the line our path may cross again, but what do I do?  What do I say? 

A part of me says that I should let go of this baggage that has and will continue to weigh me down, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  By severing all communication and leaving this in the past I will be completely free as I head west to start this new phase of my life.  I can move on from her and be ready to engage in new relationships without the burden of her resting upon my shoulders.  That would probably be the smartest thing to do for me, but the other part of me says that we have known each other for almost eight years and over the course of those years we have spoken openly and candidly and been close friends.  How could I, as her friend, abandon her know as she deals with her emotional fallout from this.  The reality is, and I'm afraid to admit this, that since she has clearly moved on with her life, that it doesn't matter whether I am there for her or not because she has someone new, but that I should move on and let go of this romantic baggage that I have been carrying for so long.  I have decided to offer all of this up to God and I have prayed that He will show me where I must go and what I must do through the people that I will be meeting along the way.

I just hope I can resist the temptation from her.

“I can resist anything but the temptation from you." - Part 1

This quotation is from Ben Harper’s song Another Lonely Day and this song is my default song when I am feeling particularly disheartened.  The next few lines that follow are, “I’d rather walk alone than chase you around, I’d rather fall myself than let you drag me on down.”  I go to this song for two reasons.  First, I like the simplicity of it and if you listen to the clip you will hear that it is just Ben singing along as he plays guitar.  When I hear the tone of his voice, especially compared to other songs of his, the sadness, the loneliness, and even despair all of which can be heard over the simple guitar riffs.  I imagine that he was writing this song alone while dealing with the emotional lows of knowing he couldn’t be with the one he loved.  For me it is a reminder of the relationships that we get into with people that last longer then they should.  We hold onto to these relationships in the hope that something will change either the person in question or the circumstances, and all will be well.  Is the comfort of what is familiar that prevents us from letting go?  Or perhaps the fear of the unknown and putting ourselves out there again to possibly be hurt again?  Whatever our reasons, these relationships hold us back and weigh us down which ultimately prevents us from moving forward into new and potentially better places in our lives.  Romantic baggage is by far the most difficult thing to shed.

           

The second reason why I go to this song when I feel low is because there is still hope.  Even in the midst of his sadness and loneliness there is one key phrase that allows a speckle of hope into the song and therefore into his life.  He says, “…further long we just may....”  To me this phrase says that even though everything seems black there is still hope that this just may work out for him and his love.  This is certainly a message that we can all take away and to know that no matter how dark it may seem around us, no matter how we may think all hope is lost, there is always hope.  I have learned this truth on several different occasions in my own past.  In those dark moments of my life I put trust in God and prayed that there was more to life than what I was experiencing in those moments of despair and loneliness.  There is always hope especially in God, but for now…it’s just another lonely day.