Leap Day.
Leap day is a beautiful day to me.
It reminds us how amazingly precise and mathematically predictable this reality is and yet how impossibly difficult it is to try and fit in our boxes.
the Earth completes its orbit around the Sun in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds (365.2425 days). The currently accepted figure is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds. Thus adding a calendar day every four years is an excess of around 44 minutes each time, or about 3 days every 400 years. To compensate for this, three days are removed every 400 years.
I love it. It's a reminder every four years that we are on a rock flying around the sun. The more often I am reminded of that the more it makes me smile.
This leap year:
Donald Trump is running for president and I really hope he doesn't get elected
The Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I'm killing myself in grad school chasing this dream of being a teacher
I live with Travis, Claire, and Melissa on Tibet Rd.
I work at the VECC.
I know I write letters to myself on my birthday every year but I also thought it would be interesting to think about where I was last leap day and to think about where I will be on the next one.
Last Leap Day was 2012.
And in beautiful irony that only the universe could write, on this exact day four years ago I was grieving the loss of a woman I loved.
Amazing.
It's honestly astounding how much I have changed from that leap day and in the same sense how similar I am.
haha I don't talk to You at all like I did in 2012. It's hard to even remember praying like that.
It's also interesting how much I hoped to get back with Whitney then and how much I hope to get back with Bea now.
I have mixed feelings about this.
First I guess it's hard to look back four years ago and remember what a coward I was about being vulnerable in a relationship and realizing how I still fear it now. It makes me wonder if I will be repeating this cycle in 2020.
I guess the whole Jeremiah 18 prayer didn't work out so well for me huh?
Haven't really allowed You to mold me into a man who can be vulnerable, who can trust someone.
Although, I would say I am much more self aware on this leap day. I finally see what's wrong with these relationships. It definitely wasn't Whitney in 2012 and it wasn't Bea in 2016.
It's me.
I run.
I want marriage but when it comes time to step up, I bolt.
God I'm definitely glad things didn't work out with Whitney.
Call me foolish but I still hope for Bea to come back and for me to find the courage to finally trust someone in a relationship. I know she's the one I'd be willing to take that risk with. She's the one I want to give myself to. She definitely has helped me grow in the best sort of way. I think reading that leap day letter in 2012 is proof of that. I love Bea in such a very different way. I don't want these four years of growing to wither to go to waste. I want to keep growing together with her. Yes certainly more pruning will be involved but with that comes so much new growth. I want seasons of her beside me gardening. I want to be the man she makes me. I want her in my short little life.
I won't say that I am completely in the same place. I have grown with Bea in my life. I left the country for the first time in my life later in 2012. I found my passion for education. I pursued a job at the early childhood center even when I wasn't hired I continued to pursue. And this past summer I started grad school to continue to chase this dream. I know I wouldn't have had the guts to reach any of these levels without the help of Bea seeing in me what I couldn't. Since the last leap year I've also found my love for gardening and I ran the Arawak plot all by myself in 2014. Again I wouldn't have known how beautiful plants are without Bea in my life. These past four years have been really good years. So much growth.
It makes me want to call her right now just to listen to her heart. To hear the things she's been thinking. To hear her laugh again. It makes me want to ask her to go on a walk on that farm north of Lane with her bear dog. It makes me want to stand completely still and look into those giant brown eyes feel my lungs fill with air and know that we exist. That giant heart of hers ugh how dumb am I? I just want to grab her pretty little face and kiss her and tell her I am for her. Tell her I love her and I know she loves me and tell her how fucking scared that makes me. Tell her all the things I wrestled with last year, all the stuff that weighed so heavy on my heart. Finally stop the performance and just fucking be with the woman and I and loves me back. Sit next to her watching episode after episode of Grey's anatomy. Light some candles listen to her sing Avett brothers or talk about Sleeping at Last lyrics. God I wish she would text me...I'd even settle for a like on instagram anything to give me hope that she feels half of what I know now she felt in the fall.
Well here I am again, four years older and in the same spot. I guess I should pray the same prayer again.
The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. Then the Lord gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
-Jeremiah 18
Fuck, God I am tired of this cycle. The winter of 2012 sucked and this one is no different. I don't want to go through this again. So yes, I am clay in your hands I guess these sleepless nights and this season of Lent, praying for Bea to take one more risk with my sorry broken ass, is the crushing of the jar of my life back into another fucking lump.
How embarrassing to come to You on leap day and find myself in the exact same spot. Bea was certainly different though wasn't she? She always thought I never got over Whitney haha if I could only show her how much she means to me. If she only knew. I guess I did show her my vulnerability. I showed her how I run away. I wonder what she thought when I ran. I wonder if she knew how much I love her. I wonder if there is any of that left on her end still. How badly my fear of intimacy hurts the one person I want to be intimate with. If only I had one more chance to take that risk with Bea.
Beautiful irony that only the universe could write.
I will be a husband.
I will be a father.
I will learn to love God.
and I will be damn good at it too.
Augustana - Boston
Leap day is a beautiful day to me.
It reminds us how amazingly precise and mathematically predictable this reality is and yet how impossibly difficult it is to try and fit in our boxes.
the Earth completes its orbit around the Sun in 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds (365.2425 days). The currently accepted figure is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds. Thus adding a calendar day every four years is an excess of around 44 minutes each time, or about 3 days every 400 years. To compensate for this, three days are removed every 400 years.
I love it. It's a reminder every four years that we are on a rock flying around the sun. The more often I am reminded of that the more it makes me smile.
This leap year:
Donald Trump is running for president and I really hope he doesn't get elected
The Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I'm killing myself in grad school chasing this dream of being a teacher
I live with Travis, Claire, and Melissa on Tibet Rd.
I work at the VECC.
I know I write letters to myself on my birthday every year but I also thought it would be interesting to think about where I was last leap day and to think about where I will be on the next one.
Last Leap Day was 2012.
And in beautiful irony that only the universe could write, on this exact day four years ago I was grieving the loss of a woman I loved.
Amazing.
It's honestly astounding how much I have changed from that leap day and in the same sense how similar I am.
haha I don't talk to You at all like I did in 2012. It's hard to even remember praying like that.
It's also interesting how much I hoped to get back with Whitney then and how much I hope to get back with Bea now.
I have mixed feelings about this.
First I guess it's hard to look back four years ago and remember what a coward I was about being vulnerable in a relationship and realizing how I still fear it now. It makes me wonder if I will be repeating this cycle in 2020.
I guess the whole Jeremiah 18 prayer didn't work out so well for me huh?
Haven't really allowed You to mold me into a man who can be vulnerable, who can trust someone.
Although, I would say I am much more self aware on this leap day. I finally see what's wrong with these relationships. It definitely wasn't Whitney in 2012 and it wasn't Bea in 2016.
It's me.
I run.
I want marriage but when it comes time to step up, I bolt.
God I'm definitely glad things didn't work out with Whitney.
Call me foolish but I still hope for Bea to come back and for me to find the courage to finally trust someone in a relationship. I know she's the one I'd be willing to take that risk with. She's the one I want to give myself to. She definitely has helped me grow in the best sort of way. I think reading that leap day letter in 2012 is proof of that. I love Bea in such a very different way. I don't want these four years of growing to wither to go to waste. I want to keep growing together with her. Yes certainly more pruning will be involved but with that comes so much new growth. I want seasons of her beside me gardening. I want to be the man she makes me. I want her in my short little life.
I won't say that I am completely in the same place. I have grown with Bea in my life. I left the country for the first time in my life later in 2012. I found my passion for education. I pursued a job at the early childhood center even when I wasn't hired I continued to pursue. And this past summer I started grad school to continue to chase this dream. I know I wouldn't have had the guts to reach any of these levels without the help of Bea seeing in me what I couldn't. Since the last leap year I've also found my love for gardening and I ran the Arawak plot all by myself in 2014. Again I wouldn't have known how beautiful plants are without Bea in my life. These past four years have been really good years. So much growth.
It makes me want to call her right now just to listen to her heart. To hear the things she's been thinking. To hear her laugh again. It makes me want to ask her to go on a walk on that farm north of Lane with her bear dog. It makes me want to stand completely still and look into those giant brown eyes feel my lungs fill with air and know that we exist. That giant heart of hers ugh how dumb am I? I just want to grab her pretty little face and kiss her and tell her I am for her. Tell her I love her and I know she loves me and tell her how fucking scared that makes me. Tell her all the things I wrestled with last year, all the stuff that weighed so heavy on my heart. Finally stop the performance and just fucking be with the woman and I and loves me back. Sit next to her watching episode after episode of Grey's anatomy. Light some candles listen to her sing Avett brothers or talk about Sleeping at Last lyrics. God I wish she would text me...I'd even settle for a like on instagram anything to give me hope that she feels half of what I know now she felt in the fall.
Well here I am again, four years older and in the same spot. I guess I should pray the same prayer again.
The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. Then the Lord gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
-Jeremiah 18
Fuck, God I am tired of this cycle. The winter of 2012 sucked and this one is no different. I don't want to go through this again. So yes, I am clay in your hands I guess these sleepless nights and this season of Lent, praying for Bea to take one more risk with my sorry broken ass, is the crushing of the jar of my life back into another fucking lump.
How embarrassing to come to You on leap day and find myself in the exact same spot. Bea was certainly different though wasn't she? She always thought I never got over Whitney haha if I could only show her how much she means to me. If she only knew. I guess I did show her my vulnerability. I showed her how I run away. I wonder what she thought when I ran. I wonder if she knew how much I love her. I wonder if there is any of that left on her end still. How badly my fear of intimacy hurts the one person I want to be intimate with. If only I had one more chance to take that risk with Bea.
Beautiful irony that only the universe could write.
I will be a husband.
I will be a father.
I will learn to love God.
and I will be damn good at it too.
Augustana - Boston