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.
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