a different indulgence

tonight was the most painful. i guess it's because it was the first time i'd seen Val in person since she left. i got through the evening okay, but when i got home, i just sat for awhile, trying to work up the motivation to work on the to-dos.

but i just bawled instead. by the way i'm almost sorry that i'm posting this here, but i don't want to talk to anyone else about it, and i don't want to blog it publicly. so i need privacy and someone who will empathize. that makes this blog the magic.

anyway i cried because of the pain she caused me (in the past and recently and tonight when we met at church). but i also cried because of the pain i caused her. i really hated myself.

i am starting to feel the things that i guess people who divorce would feel. i feel filthy, more sinful than i have ever felt. i feel like this disqualifies me from having healthy intimate relationships anymore; or even if it doesn't, people will still think it does, which is kinda worse. i feel like i failed in the part of life that mattered the most. i feel like i failed not just Val but God, and my family, and my friends. i even feel like i'm betraying myself.

i feel like i will never be free from this unbearable pain. i feel like i cannot be comforted. i feel like i cannot be redeemed. i feel like i am not worthy of anything good. i feel like i cannot make good decisions, which is the most disorienting feeling i've ever felt. i feel like i'm doing everything wrong and all of Valerie's critiques and insults and attacks are valid.

i feel like i'm headed for even greater disaster somehow, like this is just me getting caught in the whirlpool's outer rim, and drowning is inevitable. i feel like guilt and shame will follow me all the days of my life.

worst of all, i am having trouble thinking through any of this. it's overwhelming my usually sufficient barriers and places of strength.

i have begged friends for prayer and they have immediately complied. i have now blogged, and even though there is much i want to vomit out (and need to), i don't think i can do that here and now. thank goodness, right?

my feelings have never before overrun me to this degree, for this long. i feel ransacked, enslaved, abused... and i cannot fight it. at least, i don't know how.

i should tell you that your empathy has meant the world to me, and i wish more than anything right now that you could be here to comfort me with it. i think i could fall asleep without difficulty, which will certainly not be the case tonight. i tell you that not to invoke more empathy but to say thank you, and to place value on your friendship.

divorce is not yet final, but i expect no other outcome without God's direct intervention, for which i am waiting for two months or until Val becomes too impatient.

i look forward to the end.

tacet, harmony, confluence

because i've been moving out of my apartment, and staying very busy both at and away from work, so many thoughts and feelings i've had over the past day or two have been lost. elle est ce qu'elle est. the thought-construct i'm envisioning will have to do without them.

after another juicy conversation with Jerad yesterday eve, i feel i understand myself and this situation (the one with you) a little more. but that doesn't make me better at defining it, apparently, so i'm left with describing it. again. what are secret blogs for if not indulgence in one's hunger for unraveling life's mysteries via musings?

i have spent much of my life needing to express strong emotions and thoughts. my various blogs, journals, and other publications served me well in the latter need, as have my time in youth groups and college classes and close-knit circles of friends.

brick #1

music has always been my primary way of expressing strong emotions. i think that, without my overflowing heart, i would be about half the vocalist i am today.

brick #2 

my secondary outlet for emotions appeared to be writing... however, as i look back on that, i realize that i always wrote with an audience in mind. not necessarily anyone specific, but i wrote publicly, and with some expectation that someone somewhere sometime would appreciate and understand, at least somewhat. and someones did.

in fact many someones did. i at one time had over a dozen regular readers (this was when myspace was a big deal). many of them were female, and this served me well because i am more able to connect with females emotionally than with males.

brick #3

i wrote in my blog one March evening in 2007 these words:

the very worst thing that could ever happen to this blog, is happening. 

i'm becoming someone i don't know. i always thought becoming myself would involve alot of discipline and struggle to acquire those skills and strengthen those traits that i desired, or wanted to desire. i thought becoming myself entailed intentionality and planning. well, apparently it also involves interruption and surprise and mystery and confusion and dissonance. that is bad for this blog, because if i don't know who i am, or who i am becoming, and especially if i don't know why i'm becoming, or how, then whose blog is this that i'm posting on? 

...on the other hand, some of my very best posts have come from surprises... things i wasn't prepared for. in fact, most of the best things in my life have been 'interruptions' of one kind or another. most of my friends, most of my spiritual experiences, my greatest pains and joys and defining chapters or moments... yeah. 

 the very best thing that could ever happen to this blog, is happening.

this thing was Valerie. i say she was the worst thing because the happiness i felt at the time was squelching my creative angst, and because she was becoming my outlet. she was, to a degree, replacing my blog. BUT THEN, i say she was the best thing because she was part of huge change in me, and that was an important theme in my blog.

another change was in store for me after that, and as i lost Valerie (gradually, some would argue), i lost that outlet. but i rarely blogged.

fortunately i still had music. and at some point, very fortunately, i had you, friend.

until i suddenly had my flute stolen, and said goodbye to you, and planned to cease my worship team involvement for a month. hey, look: i'm blogging again.

this is all leading somewhere, i promise.

brick #4

Danica Ryan Overton, you are a confluence of a multitude of wonderful and necessary things in my life:

• deeply moving music, into which i can dive headfirst and express myself and lose myself and find myself. music can be a direct line to my heart, and when it involves both beauty (your tone, style, etc) and creative/intelligent harmony... well, eff. i'm done for.
• careful, complex thinking, which is a necessity for close friends of mine. the complexity itself is not a goal, but rather a requirement for dealing with life responsibly. our commitments deserve it.
• values that seem to match mine. i say 'seem to' because i have been deceived before, and because even our several years of friendship have not been enough for me to know you as truly as i would wish to. (i do not doubt; to the contrary, my belief in you runs quite deep. i simply have unanswered questions.)

these things seem great by themselves. they strike me when i consider how they have played out in our friendship. the opportunities for emotional and intellectual and spiritual growth, expression, satisfaction, challenge... 

i want more. if you read these words and still do not understand or believe, i will be amazed and my message will have to find a more impactful method of delivery.

i haven't even attempted to completely explain why i feel and think about you this way. i have this one young blog-- these two cents, to represent a fortune. i don't even know how i'd go about planning to make such an attempt. i haven't even once said anything (directly) about your... ahem... aesthetic appeal! (this is perhaps the least important aspect of a person, but i have concluded after much thinking and experience that it does matter somewhat.)

~        ~        ~

it's become a habit of mine to interrupt my own explanations with questions about why i'm attempting to explain things. aside from all the usual INTJ-ish reasons, i suppose it comes back to what i've already said several times in this blog:

i worry that, if you ever read this, you will write it off. that you will attribute it to the holistic attrition of my person, caused by my relational circumstances.

in the case that this is indeed a deterrent for you, i suppose time will have to suffice: time to prove that what i have shown you here are not merely war wounds or nutritional deficiencies. they are my heart and mind, nearly as deep as One could expose, if He chose to do so (and He occasionally does). they are, for me, truth, in the most personal and intimate sense of the word.

how i wish we could have been friends without hindrances. perhaps there is still time.

contradiction

i am having trouble wrapping my mind around this: that i long for the comfort of your voice, your presence, your beauty, your music... and yet all these things i would have labeled desires of intimate friendship, rather than romantic love. i'm still having trouble distinguishing.

and now that i say that... didn't you say something similar the last time we broke naan and drank wine together? i don't remember your exact words. please remind me. in retrospect i should not have asked the question in front of others, and perhaps not at all... but i had been wondering for ahwile and i guess i was in a mood of openness.

(by the way, i'm reading your old tumblr posts, and i want you to know: it's sooo much scarier to love than to be loved. am i biased? definitely. am i still right? perhaps.)

so there it is, the useful thing you shared about 5 months ago. now, help me out: don't i have a companionate love for you? or at least, doesn't it seem like that's what i'm desiring?

don't get me wrong. i'm not ruling out passion. in fact i would totally write a nice pair of paragraphs about it, and how it applies to this situation, but that would make me very uncomfortable because i'd not only think but i would also feel very strongly that i'd be stepping over a very clear and solid line. or maybe scaling a wall is a better metaphor.

ANYWAY i'm just sayin', and i'm not gonna lie: it is what it is.

my hatred is new every Sunday morning

have you ever tried ripping off your right thumb? even the ghost pains are exquisite.

going to CCC, i might as well hire a professional to purposely taunt me with everything i want, everything that (in and of itself) is good for me... everything i should have. okay maybe not everything. just a few of my favorite things. when my marriage dies, when your angelic singing voice stings, when i'm feeling like @#$!... i simply remember my favorite things, and then i feeeeeeeeeel, muuuuuuch wooooooooorse!

and, scene.

~        ~        ~

wait. why am i just unloading my junk? that's not what this blog is for! back on topic!

i have been waiting for some sort of automatic defense mechanism to kick into gear, something to tell me, "isaiah... this silly crush has gone on long enough. you know how irrational it is, now get your heart straight. here are all the reasons why imagining a life with Danica is a waste of your time, and here are all the things you know about her that would make it a terrible idea to pursue her affections in any situation, let alone in the aftermath of the one you're in now. here are all the reasons why the thing you think you want, isn't what you want."

still waiting.

i can explain.

tonight i told J&H what they had already begun to suspect. it felt good to do so. Heather said that it had to have crossed your mind at some point the past (the possibility of an intimate relationship), and i said that i very much doubted that.

i am so impatient to ask you so many things. that's one of them.

i don't know if you know what it feels like to hope for someone to want you in this way, but i hope that you do, because i'm not sure any description i wrote would do it justice.

i am too sleepy to attempt the task right now. i love and miss you. i'm afraid you might hold it against me that i am loving and missing you while i still wear this ring... but i trust that if the time is ever right for me to show you these words, then the time will probably also be right for you to listen and accept my story and my explanations. i will trust the hypothetical you and the future for now.

you are more than just the greener grass, or the oasis in this current desert of mine. you are the only person about whom i have ever said (perhaps ever will say?), "this could be my trusted partner, my constant joy. she has already almost been those in some ways, for some time. i simply want them all the time, in lots more ways."

if the time comes for me to tell you these things, i hope that you will understand them, or at least give me a chance.

i can explain.

i figured it out

i've always been fascinated by the way friendships develop, grow, morph, change. and so it's always a pleasurable self-indulgence to explore that topic in conversation with friends-- the closer, the better. the longer the journey, the better.

so that's enough by itself for me to be asking questions like, "why are we still friends?"

but the extra something that motivated me to ask you those questions was simply a desire for more. i wanted more. i always did. not more as in something different or more serious... just more. "let's be friends" is a stranger's or acquaintance's way of saying they want more. that's natural and to be expected.

i was saying (subconsciously) "let's be friends more" every once in awhile. and for the most part, you obliged me. not as much as i wanted (thank goodness, it turns out), but you trusted me, invested in me, let me invest in you... et cetera.

and then there was a time when you walked away from our friendship. and then you walked back into it. and then i wanted more again.

in keeping with my theory about the best romances coming out of the best friendships, i think that if i had been free with you to be as much "friends" as i wanted, i would have fallen in love with you for months or years before realizing what had happened. that's how natural it seemed to me (apart from a slight hesitance that i've always sensed but never fully addressed with you, for fear of finding out that you were purposely keeping your distance).

i mean, i sort of did that anyway, but it was (obviously) messier this way. i wish i'd had more freedom to be friends more with you. i think that it could have been monumentally special. i think we could have bonded in such a way that it would have astounded us with its quality and seamlessness.

i long for that still, and it is the basis of my feelings for you. there are others, but that is the foundation: i want to be friends-- more.

back to reality

this blog has been missing something. i just realized what it is. i will question myself in order to reveal it.

"isaiah, if this is really where your heart is, then how can you claim to be wholly fighting for your marriage still? and if you can't claim that, then aren't you stepping over the line in a very clear way, regardless of what Valerie's done?"

ahhhh. excellent. that's what i needed. now i feel less like an all-around a-hole, and more like a committed man who has a-holic motivations.

this is the truth: if Valerie hit her head and suffered from an amnesia so perfect that she forgot every bad experience with me, but remembered all the good (in which case she would feel loved, which is the subject of her primary marital complaint / critique), then i would make full use of that opportunity to rebuild our marriage to health and wholeness, forsaking all others (including you, Danica) in heart & mind & action.

i feel that the main obstacle to the health of my current marriage is Valerie's anger, or difficulty with forgiveness, or bitterness, or resentment. even when i do or say loving things, i am rejected or despised in response (even if not immediately, especially if i don't give her everything she asks for when and how she asks for it). thus it becomes all-important that i make her feel loved, not just that i love her... and that is not entirely within my control, especially now. that's why the amnesia hypothetical works: because as long as Valerie feels so negatively toward me, she cannot receive whatever good i come up with. which is fundamentally why i believe the marriage is failing.

even with the amnesia, i predict that the marriage would end up in the same place eventually, due to who Val is at her core... the kind of person who, in the deepest parts of herself, makes decisions based on her feelings, and who feels loved only if she is not refused anything.

but back to the example: if given that kind of opportunity, i would give the marriage the same fighting chance (for my part) that i'd been giving it so far. as things stand now, i do not think i will choose to do this, because of what i perceive to be inevitable failure, which i could also term as my spouse's refusal to change.

my changing is not enough. even if i changed myself past the boundaries of my conscience, in order to give Valerie everything she asked for, all the time, that would not change who she is, and problems would arise once again: really, the same problems. someone who cannot accept refusal (selfishness??) and has so much difficulty giving & receiving grace (no idea what to call that) is, in my opinion, doomed to some degree... and dooming others around her.

~        ~        ~

it would take me awhile to get over you 100%, i think, and i'm not sure our friendship could ever be the same as it was when it was at its best (whenever and whatever that was), but i could do it. my heart does eventually follow my head, as long as my head has a strong foundation of grounded, reasonable confidence. i would be able to put up intangible walls in myself that could help our friendship be comfortably bounded rather than awkwardly restricted.

not that you've ever felt awkwardly restricted. ...have you?

burn the bridge, burn to gold

i feel somewhat at peace this morning. maybe it's because i have set up the last barrier necessary... or maybe it's because i was privileged enough to receive an e-mail of moderate length from you this morning. i was especially comforted to hear that your heart breaks when you think about how much pain i must be in, but that's extremely childish & crush-ish of me, so maybe i shouldn't focus on it much. let's change topics.

things i am praying will happen:
 - God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven
 - my own character be shaped for the better
 - deception be defeated and truth revealed
 - the course i set be the one of which God approves
 - my ministry not be compromised
 - my character as a man & husband be proven (even to myself)

things i'm hoping will happen:
 - my relationship with you become completely unhindered
 - you reciprocate my desires, and we spend decades living out the most fun adventures and pursuits we can dream up, with a friendship and romance that sets an example for others and causes God to smile

conflict, confession

Cameron's prayer over me included everything that it should have. i am no closer to answers, but i am somewhat more patient in waiting for them, and my confidence is bolstered. i'll need that when it comes time to make decisions.

i want you to know that searching the heart/mind is my specialty as an INTJ/INFJ. i am telling you this to lend credence to this assertion: my feelings for you are not merely a "rebound" effect. because i have never been in this position before, i cannot say that they are 100% non-rebound-y, but what i can tell you for certain is this:

long before this volcanic eruption of romantic inclinations, i loved you (1Cor13). i valued your companionship. this is not a small thing for me. i have since elementary school chosen friends with extreme care and pickiness. the people in whom i confide and trust are rare, and the people from whom i draw emotional support are rare among even those.

furthermore: just because i wasn't always attracted to you romantically, does not mean that i considered you unattractive. i always knew you were, i just never paid much attention to it (nor explored it in my mind).

lastly: the compliments i could pay you now, in the throes of these extremely inconveniently-timed affections, are the same i could pay to you at any time, in any state of heart. perhaps that's hard for you to believe, but perhaps i'll have a chance to prove it.

the bottom line is, i want you to take seriously these things i'm feeling, thinking, and [secretly] writing. i know that might be hard for you to do, because you are more than intelligent/wise enough to recognize my 'compromised' state. i do not want you to think, "oh, that's nice. the lonely, affection-starved, loveless abandoned man suddenly has feelings for me."

instead, i want you to think, "isaiah is compromised, but he also doesn't say anything he doesn't mean. he is pretty good at discerning his own innards, and if he says that everything he's saying is not only authentic but also true, then perhaps it is."

i know you well enough to suspect that you might not take any of my compliments (explicit or implied) to heart. i urge you to take them to heart. i urge you to believe that you are indeed as attractive (objectively) as i subjectively say that you are. if given the opportunity to prove it, i would certainly do so, even if it meant gathering a decade's worth of data from longitudinal studies.

that's enough for now i suppose. thank you, Hypothetica, for reading. you are helping me without knowing it.

irony

our text conversation yesterday was hilarious... but mostly from a knowing perspective. i hope you get a chance to someday read this and enjoy the irony. my added commentary is in bold.

Danica: I hope you are enjoying the cold weather today. Sometimes I find comfort in the weather when it matches how I feel.

Isaiah: I am generally that way as well

Isaiah: The ocean and clam chowder helped a little too. How are things in Danica-land

Danica: Danica-land is in whole foods drowning in the glory that beholds her. Alyssa and I are having our first girl wine night and I'm trying to find that garlic naan....do you happen to remember where it is?

Isaiah: Near the place where they make you sandwiches. It's with lots of other breads. I know what you mean about glory... I want to buy or steal 75% of things there

Danica: Mmm yes. Me as well. We should plan a heist

Isaiah: :/ Perhaps in the less soon future...

Danica: Perhaps illegal activity would not make anything better...

at this point i guffawed. it was almost painful, it was so loud and unplanned. i had been pondering "illegal activity" for hours upon end at this point. (not the heist kind.)

Isaiah: ...I haven't been ambushed by a laugh that effectively in months.

Isaiah: I seriously might be laughing at that all day long.

Danica: :) I'm glad that struck you as funny!

Isaiah: Someday I will explain all the reasons why it has earned you a place in the great hall of quotability, alongside such greats as J S Mendel

Danica: You'll tell me when I'm older?

Isaiah: When we're BOTH older.
Isaiah: That reminds me: Your klipsch-y-poos haven't given me trouble once yet

Danica: Mmmm. They don't like me!! I knew it

Isaiah: Depending on how mature they are, maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe they DO like you and they're super-shy.

Danica: Well it's annoying. Just say it already! Hahaha

Hahaha indeed... jerk. thanks for twisting the knife. stop saying words. (i don't blame you; obviously you couldn't've known.)

Isaiah: They're waiting for you to give them your ear

Danica: Argh... Welp fine. -___-

Isaiah: lol nice face. I don't really care if we don't trade back. I would want to reinforce the cord in certain places though

Danica: Well keep listening. It's around the jack and the left earbud stops until I adjust the cord by the jack

Isaiah: I've already spent Like ten hours with em. I even spent a few minutes fiddling with the jack trying to make it have a problem. In fact I wanted to make a joke about tweaking your clipsch and getting nothing but great noises but it seemed a little much... So i wisely kept that one to myself.

Danica: Until now. ;) well I guess I'm crazy and was hearing things...or not hearing things.

your simple wink-emoticon, rather than an awkward response, was very difficult for me. not because i couldn't interpret it correctly, but because i really wanted to mis-interpret it. i was expecting shock or at least discomfort of some kind, but saw none... yea. which was difficult.

Isaiah: It'll probly start again as soon as they're returned

Danica: Prob

Isaiah: Totes poss?

Danica: Fo sho

meet the parents

http://www.san-simeon-lodging.com/California-Central-Coast-Vacation-Guide/Outdoor-Activities/pg-Campgrounds-Trails-Picnic-Hearst/Camping-4-Cerro-Alto-Atascadero-Campground-Highway-41_jpg.htm

http://www.recreation.gov/camping/Cerro_Alto_Camground/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&parkId=71995&topTabIndex=Search

http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/pacficsw/lospcmp.htm#cerro%20alto

on my way to Los Osos today, i passed by the entrance to a campground area. it didn't make me think of you... me falling for you made me think of you. it just so happened that i while i was thinking of you, i passed by the entrance to this campground. your tumblr posts and our conversations and just knowing you made me think at this time, "perfect." but then i thought, in classic Dramanica fashion, "or is it?!"

well i googled it later and found that perfect is not a bad description.

#dreaminghard

richard marx

i feel i'm on fire. i have thousands of words but no safe, effective outlet. i think this is the closest i will get.

i think i'm losing control somewhat, and that's not entirely new for me, but it's certainly been awhile. high school. it's like i've been subverted, and can't pin down the mole. it's driving me insane. "an itch i can't scratch" is too weak. i'm on fire.

all i can do is post on my coward's blog, and wait for the fuel to be consumed.

this is the most difficult situation i've ever encountered, and the two people who could help me the most through it (emotionally) are the two i can't go to. Val is doing her own thing, and sprung it on me ambush-style, which pencils... but she could give me some peace, if her heart were different. you, my friend, are the very worst person for me to seek comfort from, but you're my heart's first choice, which is a large part of the problem, which makes it a double problem. maybe triple. who's counting?

i imagine these scenarios playing out in the ways i want, and then i imagine them playing out in ways i don't want. (the latter, i sort of scrub through quickly.) that's partly the way i process things, but i'm beginning to think it's also my brain looking for an outlet for the biochemical AMF that it's apparently got on tap. fine then. it's not like i was getting through this clean anyway. might as well add one more mess to everything.

fuck.

i wonder what it would do to you, to know about this. i wonder if you would start to feel responsible, as if you might have caused some of my marital problems. i know that's irrational, and i know you aren't irrational by choice, but you've confessed that you struggle with irrationale, especially with regard to shame and self-loathing and blame and so on. i know that, and that's one of the many reasons i can't say any of this to you. what if it compromises you? how can i in good conscience say, "my wife is in the process of leaving me, but she's claiming to be trying to help us make the marriage work, but that doesn't change what i think is really going on, and even though i believe the right thing to do is to make every effort to save it, i'm actually strongly hoping it will all fall apart so that i can tell you how i really feel"?!

even if Val did leave, how could i say anything to you after that? what if you looked back on it and wondered whether you had somehow interfered with mine and Val's attempts to mend our marriage? what if you identified yourself as an unintentional complication that possibly tipped the scale enough to crash it?

and even if you didn't react that way... what if i told you how i felt, and you had nothing to offer reciprocally? could we still be friends? why would you even want to be? how awkward would that be, trying to be a friend to me after discovering my true heart?

in light of all that, what if the best thing for you was for me to totally leave? like, to become acquaintances?

actually, i think i could do that if it really was best for you. it certainly would be an easier choice than the ones i'm having to make now. it's all i can do not to text you constantly, and even when i restrain myself i end up saying something stupid that comes across wrong and i feel like i should correct it with more words which i know would probably just dig me deeper if they even came out intelligibly at all.

fuck. again.

honestly this is worse than high school. way worse. at least in high school when i had to endure this foolishness (i think they call it a crush when it's shallow and something else when it isn't), i had some kind of prime directive to keep me doing right foolish things. now i barely even have the presence of mind to tell myself that i'm being foolish at all.

i can't keep taking this much insanity. something needs to give, or i will.

i guess writing this does help a little, even if i don't really expect you to ever read it. which really prompts me to just let everything out. weird how i'm hesitant to speak freely, even here. maybe it's that i know how much more real i will make it just by letting it out, even if it's only a top-secret blog. (that's the other movie i wanted to watch with you... i just coincidentally reminded myself of it. so it's Minority Report, Top Secret, and Brick. and the Fountain.)

anyway, here's what i really want to say, and probably what this blog wanted to get at all along:

• it could just be the drugs my head is brewing for itself, but i have no way of knowing, so there's no point trying to figure it out. i guess i just have to say it: i have neither met nor heard of a more attractive woman than you, nor one as attractive as you. you are the most attractive woman i have ever met or heard of, and i can't seem to stop thinking about that.
• the friendship we've built is exactly the kind of fertile soil i recommend to those who desire healthy romance. and so it makes complete sense to me, even apart from the loneliness that Val has created in me, that i would fall for you so completely. we trust each other, we understand each other, we enjoy each other, our values (in both mind and heart) have huge overlap, and we've been through some highly emotional situations together, which have shown me that you & i are capable of an intimacy not every pair of friends or even romantic friends can have. you are certainly a rarity in my life: not just someone with whom i can be intimate, but a potential companion (and not just someone i help along on their own journey).
• if i felt this way and i were single (without complications), and if you gave me the opportunity, i would woo the socks off of you. i would work at it like my life depended on it.
• and last, but not least: all of this is probably stupid because of reasons one through one basquillion.

so there you have it. the worst effing situation i've ever been in. not your fault at all; it really is not. but that doesn't really make it any easier. i just want the hypothetical you that i'm writing to, to know that: you did nothing wrong (at least not that i know of) to cause any of this for me. in fact you've done great by me.

the only complaint i have about the friendship you've shown me is that i always wanted more of it. and maybe i always will.

this cup

i'm in considerable pain. just a few days ago i was relieved and loving life, almost enjoying the feeling of floating through complete uncertainty. now i just hate where i am, and every moment not spent focusing on some external task is spent thinking of you.

can a person rightfully pray for their own will if they know it conflicts with God's? can a person rightfully ask that a cup be taken from them if they have already been told to drink?

i desperately want to find both health and happiness in a life lived with you nearby. i can think of nothing more pleasant, nothing more relationally fulfilling. God guide me if i am leading myself astray. God strike me and turn me to a different road if this one ends in wrongdoing. if He does not, i may be dooming myself and others.

coasting

tomorrow work is sending me to SLO for an inspection. i wish i could take you with me.