06/26/16

The living at least know they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, nor are they remembered. Whatever they did in their lifetime—loving, hating, envying—is all long gone. They no longer play a part in anything here on earth. So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this! Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne! Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil. Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to Sheol, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.
-Ecclesiastes 9

Maybe one of the most beautiful passages in all of scripture. I love this so much God. What a ridiculously hedonistic thought and in the bible of all places.

Religion tells us to deny ourselves to suffer to withhold to go without but the bible tells us to indulge? The bible tells us to live our truest self. "So go ahead" says the writer of Ecclesiastes... "so go ahead" reads the pharisees of Peter's day. "so go ahead" says the inspired word of God.

So go ahead...for God approves of this!

Eat your food with joy
drink your wine with a happy heart
wear fine clothes with a splash of cologne
live happily with the woman you love
do these four things through all the meaningless days of life :)

It's beautiful
It's honest
It's hedonistic
It's God approved

Bea's insta says
"Do what you love, because that's what you have to give to the world."
I have no idea where she got that from but I think that's exactly what God is commanding every human, every animal, every thing that exists in this planet and beyond do to.

To do what we love is to be Christ like. God is love.

I love who You are Jesus. Show me more of your loving heart. Make mine like yours. I want to love more and more.

I want to live happily with the woman I love through all the meaningless days of life.
How beautiful of an existence :)

Arcade Fire - Afterlife

06/19/16

She has left for Denver one week now.

I am so afraid.
I get so worried.

She says she doesn't want to be there and she just wants to come back home.
I'm nervous those feelings will change the longer she stays and the more her roots begin to dig into that city.

I love her and I want to be with her. I keep trying to make the pieces fit together but it's difficult.
Finish school
Find a place to live out there
Find a job out there
would we be married before I move?
Engaged?

She's on a camping trip with a group of guys.
I feel jealous.
I wish I didn't.

So far we have facetimed every night for at least an hour.
It's one of my favorite parts of my day.
I look forward to seeing her and listening to her thoughts at the end of each day.

It's how I want to end everyday from now on.

But I'm worried.
It's only been a week.
Will she still want to facetime after 4 months?
Will we still have things to say to each other?

All of this stuff makes me really want to run away.
I want to quit this so I can't get hurt.

But I'm not doing that. I'm done running.
I love her.
I want to marry her.
I will not let these stupid fears control my life.

I love Bea
I miss Bea

She said I feel like home.
She said she loves me.
She said she wants to marry me.
She said I am family.

Help me trust, oh God.

She talked to Hattie who thinks she should take a season away from me
She talked to Claire who said she shouldn't ask anyone for advice
She asked me to pray every morning to You, oh God
To pray about our relationship.
I will.

But You know how much I love her God. You know how much I have asked and hoped for one more opportunity to love her. One more chance to try.
And here she is.
I feel so sure of this relationship.
I am sure in my bones I want this woman to be my wife.
I asked You for another chance
Lord knows I've made mistakes. I've ran. I've performed.
But I've grown, I've learned
And I've been shown grace to try again.

Vulnerability doesn't come easy for me God. You know this.
Even encountering You has been such a wrestle.
But as these years pass I continue to gain wisdom.
Each year it is through my failures it is in the rain that I grow.
Not the mountain top but in the valley or rather the ravine of Clintonville.

I'm ready to learn more. I'm ready to take the risk of love.
I should trust this woman. She's never given me reason not to.
But fuck I am so afraid.
She is so far away and I have messed up so much in the past.
But she loves me.
She does.
She tells me everyday she tells me multiple times a day.

Losing something worth this much will hurt too much, I want to run, I want to quit
I will not.
I want to experience what You have for me.
I want to experience love, Lean into it and taste more than I have ever allowed myself before.

I'm ready to risk the vulnerability it costs to experience love oh God, to experience You.

She hasn't committed to me yet, this scares me
She might take a season of singleness away from me, this scares me
but she tells me she loves me
love
family
home
these are not light words
She is not one to toss these around carelessly
She knows me and she knows the weight and definition of these terms to me
and she says them with such sincerity and consistency

Why am I so afraid?
These are the issues I've been waiting to wrestle with You on
I will stay in this.
I will stay
I love Bea.

I trust Bea.
I think I really do trust her.
I think trusting her is worse than being paranoid and jealous.
Trusting someone is when they can hurt you the most.
It is in the trust that betrayal hurts the most. Not when you suspect something, not when you assume it is coming, no it is when complete and pure trust is in full effect that is when it hurts the most.
To completely let your guard down.
To lower your defenses and let that person completely in.
That's when they can do the most damage.
I think I let her walk in.
I trust her.
Peyton commented on her IG post
She's in a bikini drinking on a boat with random dudes
She hasn't publicly or even privately committed to me
Yet I trust her.
When she says she loves me and only wants me I believe that.

It's terrifying but it's true.
I trust this woman.

It's like I opened my gates to let in the Trojan horse knowing full well that inside of it waits an army ready to rip apart everything I am from the inside out and yet here I am wheeling this thing into the center of my city.

Because I want to. Because I trust her. Because I love her.
I want her in my walls. She feels safe. She feels safe enough to be inside the city walls knowing she will not do harm but rather she will understand and appreciate. Work with me, not against me.

ugh, what am I doing? We aren't even dating yet, she could ditch me, she could torch the city. Burn everything to the fucking ground...
But fuck it to love is to risk.
I love Bea, I want her to have it all.

I trust her.

One week down.

Said The Whale - Loveless

06/12/16

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”
― Wendell Berry

http://thisgrandadventure1992.blogspot.com/

I found Bea's old blog a couple days ago :)
I absolutely love it.
I wish she would write more.

Today is her moving day.
It's actually happening.

These past 12 days have been literally perfect.
What am I going to do with myself now?
How do I go from spending every free moment with the woman I love, my best friend, my family

To never seeing her and talking rarely as she takes a season to be single?

I miss her so much God!
She is so wonderful!

She will love it there
she will meet great friends
Sadie will love it too
she will do amazing as a City Year Team Lead
she will bring that team of strangers close as friends by next May :)
she's so great
I want to kiss her right now!

Friday night she showed up to Travis' show. That made me feel so loved. She looked amazing in that blue graduation dress. We met up at Brothers on Park street later and shut the bar down.

It was great dancing with her she is so attractive.
Yesterday we woke up together drove down the 8th ave to get her car took it for an oil change. We played trivia crack and I beat her :) I grabbed some cup o joe while we waited for the oil change then headed back to the house to begin the VERY long day of packing.

Yesterday was exhausting, emotional, and very good.

This was at least my fourth time loading everything she owns into a moving truck.
It felt like I was digging my own grave. With each box she was closer and closer to leaving. But she wants to go and it will be such a great year for her. Doesn't mean it was easy, but it is good.

Last night we came back to my place and she passed out in my bed. I loved it.
This morning she said when she is with me she sleeps through the whole night.
I like that.

I drove her back to Adams Ave for the last time.
Everyone said their goodbyes, finished up the loading,
and she was gone.

I can't express these past two weeks in writing.
I could try words like
perfect, beautiful, great, amazing, wonderful, but they feel overused and in genuine.

I can say with certainty how much I love Bea and how I know I want to marry her and spend my life with her.

12 months ago I feared she would pick mountains over me
I feared she didn't feel the same as I do
After these past two weeks, if I doubt her feelings, panic about her finding someone else, or moving on from me, that is only out of my own insecurities. That isn't from anything she has expressed or even hinted at.

She hasn't stopped talking about marrying me, loving me, missing me, and being with me.
She said she'd be back in a year.
I trust her.
I love her.
I miss her.

The Head and the Heart - Gone

06/07/16

She's leaving for Colorado Sunday.

It's happening.
She found her way back into my life
and she's leaving Sunday

She wants to be single until Thanksgiving.
She needs to be.

When I feel afraid I feel selfish. I want her to stay, I want her to commit to me. I want her to want and hope for me to wait for her. I'm so afraid.

But how many times has she chosen me? How many times has she missed me, thought of me?
Asked about me? I have so much fear but I know I can trust this woman. She has never given me a reason not to trust her.

I know she loves me VERY much so.

It's my own insecurities that bring up this fear.

I want to wait.
I love this woman.

Thanksgiving is 169 days away.
It had been over 230 days since I saw her last before this past Wednesday.
She even tried to be with someone else.

169 days

This woman loves me, she is crazy about me. Just like I am about her.

Yesterday I skipped work to spend the day with her, hell I spent Sunday with her too...and Saturday...and every single night since we started talking again Wednesday.

It feels so natural.
I feel so understood with her.
I feel known.

Yesterday we went to Mochican we talked and hiked the whole day. It was perfect. Afterwards we ate at Der Dutchman. She was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. The day was seriously perfect and I'm sure it will be one of my favorite memories.

But I want a hell of a lot more days like that.

This past week has been perfect.

I'll never forget when I helped her get out of a situation that she thought she was in too deep. But I did that for her, it wasn't disgusting, it wasn't too much, it was for her and I'd do anything for that woman.

I have so much clarity now. So much honesty. I've never been this vulnerable with her, with anyone, and it has made all the difference. It doesn't feel like dating, it doesn't feel like friends

it's family
it's love

I want to marry this woman.
I've been so afraid of actually committing to someone for marriage. I always run.

But it isn't scary when I think of marriage with her.
It's exciting.

It's how I want to spend this tiny single life I've been given.
She's who I want to spend it with.

This week has been so high and so low.

This week has confirmed how much I love her. It wasn't just fanaticism, it wasn't that I loved the idea of her. It wasn't that these past eight months my mind had created an idealistic imagine of her. She's real, as hard as it is to believe, she is real and she's beautiful.

But I've come face to face with some of my most vulnerable insecurities.

What if she forgets me?
What if there is someone better?
What if she doesn't like who I am?
What if I fail?
What if I'm not enough?

The thoughts make me want to run.
I want to say fuck this, fuck love, I never want to see you again, leave me and be done.
But I can't.

"And every day I add another stone
To the walls I built around you
To keep you safe
In there, you're safe
And it's true, you'll never beat
But you'll never break"

Hello my old heart. No more stones, no more walls, no more safety.
You might break, and I know now that WILL hurt but God how wonderful it is to let my heart beat.

To let myself feel.
This week has been scary and it will end
But I'm being as vulnerable as I've ever been with anyone with her.
And it's been perfect.

Money is a neutral indicator of value. By aiming to make money, you're aiming to be valuable.
-Derek Sivers

Sivers is full of shit.

Ontogeny is the indicator of value. By being, you're valuable.
-Adam Schuch

Love is the indicator of value.

Do what you love, because that's what you have to give to the world.

I keep trying to hold on to these nights, these moments but fuck I can't. Nothing lasts forever in this world. So I breathe them in, each moment.

It's not that I don't want her to go. It's that I want to be close to her every night. I want morning coffee every day. I want to hear her thoughts and her stress every day. I want to watch her grow. I'm tired of losing her. I'm tired of pushing her away and missing out on her story because of fear.

After these 169 days if she will have me, I won't miss another. I won't.

I want to make her laugh so hard everyday and be so close every night that she will have no choice but to grow to be 250 years old.

She said she missed being called Bea.
She said she loves me
She said she wants to marry me
She said she wants to have my child

I'm going to cry.

I love her, and I can't wait to see her again tonight.

I was sleeping in the garden when I saw you first
He'd put me deep, deep under so that He could work
and like the dawn you broke the dark and my whole earth Schuch
I was sleeping in the garden when I saw you

#nofilter

06/05/16

Preschool Graduation.

Last week my class graduated.
I'm an emotional mess haha
This job is such a unique experience.
It follows a specific cycle each year, and I like that.
The building relationships and learning about the students in the fall.
Seeing how much they have learned and how much the relationships have built trust and knowing in the winter.
The spring brings amazing appreciation for how much they have grown and developed.
Then the summer brings it all to an end and the cycle begins again in the fall.

The education season is the opposite of the gardening season. It begins in the fall and ends in the spring. The two cycles flowing beautifully.

Graduation always makes me cry
but it is good.
What would I rather have? The children stay four forever? I wouldn't wish that on them. I want them to continue to grow on their path of life.

It's this strange unique experience where I am so sad it is over. I'm sad I won't get to play Avengers with Souleymane, I'm sad Jalante won't sneak up behind me and jump on my back from the playground anymore. I'm sad I won't get to listen to Lilybeth read to me. No more stories about Kimani's messy playroom at home. No more ninja flips or anime on my phone for Xavier, no more soccer or basketball with Le'Andre. But yet I am filled with this feeling of fulfillment and accomplishment seeing these kids at graduation. Seeing how they can write their names, seeing how they can count to 20, listening to their vocabulary explode and expand.

This duel feeling. Joy and Sadness mixed perfectly to create this beautiful feeling inside me.
I walk past Hudson's cubby and see it empty and I just lose it.
No more drawling blue prints and building block houses with him, but yet I'm so excited for him to start kindergarten I know he will do so great!

I think this duel feeling is the greatest feeling we as humans can experience.
This grief that something has ended and yet this satisfaction that it happened.

Without the rarity, without the finite, without the work, the satisfaction cannot truly be experienced. It is always because of the path never the destination, It is always about the means that makes the ends so precious.

What good is it to win the lottery?
What good is it to have the helicopter drop you at the top of the mountain?
The ends never justify the means.
Life is in the means, the path. That's what life is, a path.

With that comes by nature loss and endings. Knowing I cannot hold on to anything, I can't keep any moment makes those moments more precious and satisfying than being handed my dreams.
Without the finite there is no content
without the contentment there is no grief when it ends, and it will always...end.

Is nostalgia idolatry?

So in the spring when the school year ends
the fall when the harvest comes in
when the relationship ends
when the vacation stops
when the story finishes

that feeling, that groan for more, that pain of loss, that understanding that all good things must come to an end... That is one of life's greatest gifts. It means that it mattered, and it was good.

These tears are the proof.

One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.
― Norman Maclean

A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.
-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

The Lumineers - Ophelia

06/03/16

Bea leaves for the mountains in about a week.

Sometimes when you are with someone for so long, you forget which parts are you and which are them. You only learn that when they are gone. Then all you are left with is your parts and it feels weird. Then and only then do you realize what you had. What the both of you create when the two are together. And how rare that is.

I know you're gone, I know you're gone
But I don't feel what I know
I know you're gone, I know you're gone
But my mind ain't in control
Cuz it's my heart that's been missing you
And it's the heart I need to listen to
And it's been singing songs, tender dreams
That once you sang to help us sleep

Then when the two come back together, everything seems to click back into place.
It feels natural and casual, and beautiful. This is the moment when you fully understand which parts are you and which are them and the them parts are the best parts! Those are the parts that sharpen and brighten your parts.

That is good.
I like that.

Anytime two beings with freedom and 'otherness' come together there will always be misunderstanding and miscommunication. Not all of it will be this perfect synchronization of two parts. But in the imperfect comes growth and growth always produces beauty.

And the sun, it does not cause us to grow
It is the rain that will strengthen your soul
And it will make you whole

Hello my old heart
How have you been?
How is it, being locked away?
Well don't you worry
In there, you're safe
And it's true, you'll never beat
But you'll never break

Nothing lasts forever
Some things aren't meant to be
But you'll never find the answer
Until you set your old heart free,

Until you set your old heart free,

so I went to target on Wednesday night...

...HELLO MY OLD HEART!

Chef'Special: In Your Arms

06/01/16