I told him early on, “I bet we’re going to have one of those lives that are really hard since our relationship is so good.”  The words of a poor, cynical weatherman.  I’ve been meaning to take them back.  So far it hasn’t proven true though it may look that way sometimes.  The reality is that life is propelled by choices, and whatever yin/yang mythical appearance it may take, it’s really just the harmonious nature of life that creates such an illusion, like the translucent magic of a school of moving fish.  

The personal journey I’ve been through is enormous.  So far I’ve managed to remember anything that anyone has ever said about relationships.  How to spot a good or bad one, how to keep or abandon it, etc.  I’ve sized it all up against my own.  All of this created a circus mirror that I insisted on using to observe our relationship rather than my own eyes.  Looking back I don’t know if that was a mistake or just the inevitable.  At the time we met he had virtually no place to go, at least no neutral place that wasn’t condemned or full of ghosts.  And though my house with its perversions and distortions and exaggerations and cramped, trick doorways was no place for either of us, I preferred my fun house over his haunted one. 

We spent a lot of time being gypsies.  A friend’s house, a restaurant, the Y, a free wi-fi zone, back to my house (briefly as possible), driving around, walking around, pack a bag, back to the friend’s house.  If I were, oh, say seven years younger it might’ve been fun.  But if I was ever more painfully aware of how few gains I’d made in my beginning stint of adulthood it was then.  Not that supporting your boyfriend is really something I planned on worrying about, but living like a vagabond on $600 a month while trying to figure out your next move just about quadrupled my exasperation once he showed up.  It sucks to be in a place where you can’t help yourself, let alone someone else.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t do anything, and what I did have it gave me a thrill each time to share.  Love is also such that you always want to do more.  And when you can’t do what so many people seem to simply do it can stress you out a little.  So I was stressed out a little. 

In November I left my job of three years, swiftly as circumstances could not afford sentimentality.  I started a new job at a call center, a flim flam bullshit customer service job at a staffing agency.  I stretched out the limbs of my mind and was grateful.  $2 more and twice the hours, peace of mind and sitting down.  The plan was to literally have a place of our own.  Ahead of being ahead of ourselves, I sought to be on my own by the end of the year, a place where he would be welcome 100% of the time and not subject to the fickleness of friends or fairweather philanthropy.  Wouldn’t you know the closer the end got to my sight the harder things got, go figure.  But I stayed focused.  And after some weeping and gnashing of teeth, and a couple maimed relationships later I made it to dry land, and I was more or less at peace.

Meanwhile, while I was seeking a victory, there was a relationship going on.  The first few weeks were a jaw dropping melee of discovery and just plain old fashioned glee, like Christmas and Hannukah combined. 

Omg he’s expressive! 

Omg he wants to talk about our relationship! 

Omg we think/feel/act/believe/eat/talk/hurt/heal/love/save/plan/question/challenge the exact…same…WAY 

Omg he likes/loves/tolerates/sees THAT about me! 

Omg I was mad at him and now I’m not!

Omg he’s quality time, QUALITY TIIIIME!! 

Omg he listens and I haven’t repeated myself since last Tuesday! 

And then what would life be without a few roadblocks. 

Oh crap, he’s effing crazy. 

Oh crap, he wants me to be all girly and stuff.

Oh crap, he uses Jesus Christ as a curse word. 

Oh crap, he hates/sees/is grossed out by THAT about me. 

Oh crap, he can’t be what he wants to be b/c he has a record. 

Oh crap, he’s disgusting. 

Oh crap, he fucked up… AGAIN. 

Oh crap, he has three kids that he actually wants to SEE.   

Oh crap he wants to have sex all…the…time.

There was a lot of questioning about whether or not we would make it, if the bad was truly more weighty than the good.  There was really no reason for me to do this, other than the fact that it seemed like that’s what a lot of other people did, and those people were happier and more successful– or at least that’s what people told me.  There was a lot of talk of “red flags.”  “Uh oh, that’s another red flag!”  When you find someone who isn’t teeming with red flags, let me know.  I know some people ain’t good for you, but what I’m finding out about life is that you just have to live it.  As much as I’ve racked my brain over the last few months over practically everything, it has not endowed me with any kind of powers to live longer, faster, or with any more knowledge than what I have.  I have been dethroned as the queen of prevention.  I guess I’m more like a duke or something now, I’m not completely crazy.  The only way to prevent any kind of calamity would be to un-meet him.  And don’t think for a minute I didn’t try.

What’s funny is that I’m really not doing anything super drastic other than having a life.  And life, with other people, creates problems– or as we like to call them at work, “opportunities.”    Even more funny is that my once smooth sea now consumed with waves, is to him a lively, welcoming calm after a typhoon, perfect for fishing.  The combination is a reminder that we probably belong together.  As long as he’s there saying “let’s go!”  I’ll be right there saying “wait, wait!”  And we’ll fit right into the nature of all things.  The good thing about our divergent backgrounds is that we each totally smoked the meeting of our respective families, simply on the advantage of being completely and totally different from one another and good for each other at the same time.

Despite all my fretting and second guessing, and outside trials that essentially don’t matter, every good draw that enticed me to the relationship has pretty much happened.  I think this is an encouragement to trust my instincts and values.  And this is us on low, on unleaded, on vibrate.  We’ve only just begun and all that.  It’s only been three months.  Sometimes it feels like more, sometimes it feels like three months.  We’ve pretty much spent every single day together since we met, with few exceptions.  We both know it’s too fast but it’s all seemed a little unavoidable so we accept it.  Trust me, I’ve been like one of those cartoons on a runaway train putting both feet on the engine door and pulling on the lever, but it’s no use.  More for the sake of everyone else, really.  Fast is both our bents.

If I’ve managed to say anything at all right now I’m glad.  It’s not really a play by play like I planned in my mind.  I didn’t know how I was going to call people out without it turning into a libel situation.  Time has made me diplomatic.

“Uh…I don’t know, maybe…13 bucks?”

It was a strange question.  The question of someone who leads a life that is foreign to mine.  It became clear after awhile that this was going to be a common occurrence.  A few hours at the mall and I could see how the addition of a second energy changes the entire dynamic.  First, there were the looks.  He seemed to be acutely aware of them.  ”Did you see those two girls sizin’ you up?”  What?  I thought he was just being dramatic but I looked over at two black girls, getting off the escalator and in a genuine state of blatant post-observance.  I didn’t think much of it.  If I saw us walking down the street I’d give us a look.  Curiosity, jealousy, admiration, confusion, pity it could’ve been anything.  It was new for me.  I liked it.  Then there were the random interactions with strangers.  The lady at Sephora, when we found the most expensive cold cream (around $300 I think) and he just had to ask how much of it they managed to move.  In exchange we got a mini life story.  We got at least two more of those by evening.  A peculiar exchange with the security guard at Tiffany’s.  We played a rousing game of “guess how much [this overpriced shit is]” in Restoration Hardware.  We sunk into the leather couches.  We tested out the beds.  All sexual obviousness was kept at bay.  This would be the first and last instance of vocal restraint.  By the end of the night it was killing us.

When there was nothing more to explore in the Green Hills mall we left, and inside I hoped that he wasn’t ready to go home.  I invented an errand.  It wasn’t completely without merit.  When one is in Green Hills, one must take the opportunity to go to Whole Foods if possible.  There was some gluten free bread that I was on the hunt for so I asked him to indulge me while I had to go into the store for a moment.   We paraded around the store in the same childlike fashion.  I was hopelessly lost b/c it took a phone call to Bethany and Christina to tell me that the bread was in the frozen section and not the breads section.  Axel put his finger in the mouth of a fresh mackerel on a bed of ice.  Some little kids caught wind and came brushing past me to join in on the action.  Okay, so he draws children.  If the children are cool with him then he must be cool.  He razzed me for buying a tiny loaf of bread for $4.  As we were leaving, the opening question became pertinent.

“Thank you very much!” he says.  I turn to quickly to see him grabbing a $10 bill off the counter.

“No way!” I said, or something like it.  This was no theft, no opportunist swindle out of vulnerable belongings.  It was a crumpled up, neglected $10 bill, sitting on a cushion of leftover crumbs on an abandoned tray.  Completely detached as if it hadn’t existed at all until that very moment.

“You wanna go to McDonald’s, girl??  It’s on me!” he said, enthusiastic.  I laughed, eager to have at least another hour or so with him legitimately.  ”Wendy’s is better,” I said.  Never had I been so pleased to drive in a twisted circle, one congested area to the next.  We went to the Wendy’s on 21st and used the entire 10 bucks save for about 50 cents.  We sat inside, by the window, both equally content.  The most proper date I’ve ever had!  A guy came up to us and asked us if he should try to drive home to Kentucky now or just wait about an hour, on account of the traffic.  We decided it was better to wait.  He told us about how he was a cop for about five years and how his ex-wife was in charge of a prison.  She worked too much, long unexpected hours.  They had intimacy problems.  He had custody of the kids and she paid the alimony.  Somewhere in the middle of it Axel started calling me “babe.”  I didn’t correct him.  It gave the illusion of a well forged relationship, perhaps purposely.  I wondered how old our relationship was to the eyes of this stranger.  Six months?  A year?  And we were treating each other with gentle kindness.  I tried to picture it.  I couldn’t see much except for what we had done up to now, which wasn’t much.  We pried the stranger off of us as we were getting into the car.

“Does that happen a lot?” I asked.

“A lot,” he said.

We headed toward his house.  I thought, “he’s probably had his fill of me now,” but I was confident that we liked each other about the same amount, which was significant.  Significant enough to trump the reservations I had at the beginning. Of course!

Trouble.  None of it surprised me.  It was about 6.  The highway was a sea of breaklights.  That’d give us at least 45 more minutes. I thought.  I decided to just ask him if he was ready to call it a day.  You know it’s a good sign when the guy says everything you hope he would say, in his own way, and when he does you’re not eternally grateful as if you don’t deserve it.

“Honestly, I’m tryin’ to hang out witchou, girl.”

Well, I don’t know if it’s a good sign but it’s damn hard to give up.  We went back to east Nashville, first to Portland Brew.  I broke a few unarticulated rules about touch when we sat in a big chair together.  I was never so comfortable with a guy I’d just met, especially someone so… unconventional.  We didn’t spend much time there b/c apparently Portland Brew is not that keen on making money.  They close at like, 7pm.  We walked across the street to Ugly Mugs and chatted up some people playing Settlers of Catan near the back.  We sat on the couch and looked at each other.  It was here that he opened up about some of the abuses he’d known in his life.  It was here he declared he wanted to kiss me.  I can’t much account for the time after that.  As we left Ugly Mugs I grabbed his arm, my first openly affectionate gesture, my last calculated move I would probably make with him ever.  We went for a walk, then we went to Shelby Park.  It was a cool night but we sat on a bench together trying to identify animals in the dark by their impressions on the water.  We moved to my car and he told me about how he has potent bouts of depression.  The missionary in me sat up straight and I offered to pray for him.  I put my hand in his.  As I prayed I had strange if not vague sensations.  It was perhaps the only time I’ve prayed for someone and felt more than just inner anxieties; external things I could not know how to create.  My brain was registering changes in perspective as though I was looking at something but my eyes were tersely shut.  Like being on a virtual reality ride, but with the tricks of the eye reversed.  When I was done he thanked me sincerely with a smile and kissed my hand, and right there I learned a lesson about being a Christian.

If neither of us had early days the next day we would’ve stayed out longer, but we called it a night at about 11:30.  I don’t remember what I was thinking after that, about what was happening.  Not sure if I had time.  All I knew was that I was calling him tomorrow after work, and that we would continue where we left off.

I don’t think I even had much time to catch anyone up properly.  Lord knows I did my best.  Lord knows this thing was going to get away from me and there would be details upon details that would take hours to do justice, details that would pain me to leave out.  This blog is hard enough.  ”We’re going to be broken up by the time I finish this!” I just told him.

Somehow I made it through my ridiculous job knowing there was a boy waiting at the end of my shift.  Again, I waited a few minutes before I called him.

“Guess what I got?”

“What?” I said.  He’d gotten a free membership to the YMCA and asked if I wanted to go work out or swim.  Cheap fun!  There’s no way he could’ve known that I’ve been trying to go swimming for years, and I didn’t take it much for a sign, except for maybe that God wanted me to be in a bathing suit in front of this guy already.  As apprehensive as I was, I wasn’t going to let any prudence keep me from a well-deserved frolick in a respectable pool.  We went up to the downtown Y and indeed frolicked.  Here, Axel helped me accomplish many firsts.  It was the first time I’d ever been held by a boy, in the water, out of the water.  First time being in anyone’s arms like that.  First time I’d touched so much of a man’s bare skin.  On his back the freckles are bigger flecks in more varying colors that relax and touch and become a mosaic.  First time all of this was happening and I wasn’t self-conscious, wasn’t nervous and getting the shakes and closing up like a clam.  And his behavior was completely above board, which divided my emotions.  Though we did have a candid conversation about sex, which ended up being one of the healthiest relationship exercises on the planet.  He told me about this superstition which says if you have a baby with a woman and it turns out to be a boy, that means she really wanted to have a baby with you despite what she may say.  ”But I feel like we would have a girl,” he said.  ”If we end up together,” he amended.  He showed me all his tattoos and laid out their meanings.  My favorite is the one sprawled across his back that says W A R R I O R in big bold letters.  ”I’m a warrior too,” I thought to myself.  He said he wanted it to say “God’s Warrior” but I told him it was fine as is, less is more.

After about an hour and a half we were both pruny and went to our respective steam rooms.  It was there that I started to say to God, “Okay…I think I want this one.  I think this is my order.”  It was fast, I knew, but it was very very distinct.  And I’d always prepared for something fast.  I’ll know when I know, I always thought.  What I didn’t expect was for him to be so many of the things I’ve asked for over the course of my life, so many of the deep things, so many of the “little” things that I thought were nitpicky, so many things that I thought were wise and sound after much observing, that now resided all in one human.  That night it was 2am and I still wasn’t ready to say goodbye.  He got close to me and he kissed me and I cried, b/c I knew I was now on that river rapid that everyone talks about where the current only flows one way, and though it is just made of natural and good things like rocks and motion and water, made to nourish, it is no less equipped to kill you if the circumstance is right.  But mostly I was concerned about what other people would think of my choice, namely church-shaped people.

I told him, “part of me wants to just call it a night and never see you again.”  He said, “if that happens that would be alright with me, b/c that’s exactly what I thought would happen anyway.”  My brain flashed back to a vague moment where his fears of abandonment were at their most acute.  ”You’re probably gonna realize ‘this n**** ain’t shit’ and just stop callin’ one day,” or some such nonsense.  The idea was an affront.  I thought, “he doesn’t know me very well.”  Turns out he knows me quite well; though he may not understand fully the intentions he often sees the end result before anyone.  And despite his perceived shortcomings, and my moral aptitude, between us it was I with the penchant for leaving things behind.  He could smell it.  His response made me cry even more.  ”Stop all that before you get me to cryin,” he said.

The rest of the week was a blur.  I couldn’t sleep, so I’d wake up and call my friends or my mom and tell them what was going on.  Meanwhile, my roommate’s cat was on his deathbed.  And my friend was in the throes of divorce.  At times like this you want everything to be all right, like it was when you never cared, but life is funny.  He didn’t have a job, didn’t have a car, and I was the most broke I’d ever been in my life.  ”This isn’t the time for a boyfriend, especially not this one” I staunchly declared.  I’ve been rabid about helping him clear some of the obstacles so that he can get a clear view of the future and be satisfied.  Trying to get him on the straight and narrow, in more ways than one.  On the wardrobe front I have been successful.  Once he saw himself at his GQ potential he started to view his 4-sizes-too-big trousers with disdain.  ”I’m starting to see what you talkin’ about,” he admitted.  On the outside I made nothing of this game-changing victory.  I plan to do this many more times over the course of our lives.

We’ve been slowly trying to build on solid rock, both individually and relationally.  Our biggest challenge is not letting our respective fears of losing the other take control.  While he’s afraid I’ll break his heart in one way or another, I’m afraid our differences in age will create a perfect chasm between us.  Though I will never be more than seven years older than him, time and babies and gender expectations will make it so that when he is 29 I will be 50, and in 20 years when he is 42 and by all accounts perfect, I will be 100 and run out of surprises, and he will be free to relive this burgeoning relationship with another 29 year old, only this time as the better man he certainly will be when I’m through with him.  Unforseen circumstances have rendered us inseparable for the time being.  I called my mom and she met him that first weekend.  I watched her face as he talked to her candidly about who he was, in all his unrefined glory, he and I on the couch holding hands and my leg tangled around his.  ”I know you’ve gotta be trippin’ right now,” I said to her.  It’d been less than a week since I told her about him.  The weeks following were sort of more of the same.  Me and Axel tangled up and me watching everyone react to it.  Some people have liked it, some people haven’t.  Some people have expressed approval, some people haven’t.  Some are just generally perplexed.  That was on my list!  As time goes on and as more people interact with us they start to get it.  Especially since he’s so damn fine.  And he likes me a lot.  Maybe even loves.  And he ain’t shy about it.  Again, on the list.

Okay, I can’t carve out anymore time to do this and I suppose we’re “caught up” whatever that is.  More adventures to come I’m sure.

I think I like coming up with specific dates and times when it can give me the illusion of control.  Otherwise I hate it.  The gravity of the situation caused me to have an unusual amount of precaution that actually ended up serving me.  29 years old, never seen, smelled or otherwise sensed a major relationship, never really known mutual attraction, and decidedly in a “fuck it” phase of life.  I knew I could not afford naivete.  I was confident that he would end up being like every other dead end, preventing me from being completely irresponsible.  He would inevitably say something stupid.  22 years old, no degree, lives in the projects.  The odds were in my favor.  I called him at 12:08.  No answer.  I left a voice mail, with my number.

At first I was annoyed, because it meant I would have to wait.  Til when?  God only knows.  Guys tend to have a strange concept of time that stretches along a plane governed by boredom or horniness.  And he was 22, so.  The outlook wasn’t good.  I busied myself in the kitchen when I got the funny suspicion that he’d called me while I was away from my phone, which is always on vibrate.  And sure enough he had.  There was a voice mail.  ”Uh, yeah this is Axel…” He called me back on a different number.  Sketchy, my female intuition said.  I called the number back, it was the rec center.  He was in the computer lab, still looking up scholarships and grants.  Oh yeah, I forgot, he’s poor and also an adolescent.  ”He’ll call you right back,” the lady said.  I left my phone in the kitchen where I knew I’d hear it buzz on any of the surfaces, but somewhere along the way it ended up in the living room on top of a very soft Bible.  ”No!” I thought. If there’s another missed call…

Lo and behold, he’d called me again.  One minute earlier.  What am I doing? I thought.  Where can this possibly go?  It was a familiar feeling.  I hadn’t even gotten started and I was already weary.  The phone tag was an omen to me.  I refuse to lie in wait for a 22 year old to call me.  Have I sunk to the depths?  Why did I want to do this again?  Just as I was about to write the whole thing off the phone buzzed in my hand.  It was him again.  I laughed at myself.  See that, worry wart?  I thought.  Then I thought,  Hm, he called me right back even though I didn’t answer.  I thought I was the only one that did that.  Doesn’t he know that’s stalkery?  I answered and he was like, “I’m not trying to be a stalker or whatever, I just like to call people right back to make sure I don’t miss them,” or something like that.  ”It’s cool,” I simply said.  We made plans to talk after I got off work with the possibility of meeting up some place.  I was still adamant about not getting excited.  It was virtually impossible for me to do, actually.  My only hope was to be able to see this through to the moment he shows his ass so I can go back to my life with assurance.

Right after work I waited around the customary 30 minutes before calling.  Didn’t want to seem too eager.  Didn’t want to seem eager at all.  I called him around 8:30 and to my surprise, we actually talked.  Can’t remember all about, the customary introductory talk that one has with a prospect.  We had a few things in common here and there, enough to make me think he’d be a decent guy to be around.  He said just about all the right things a guy would need to say to me, which was intriguing b/c I was almost certain he would have no idea what those things were.

“Oh, and I have three kids,” he blurted out.

“I know, you showed me pictures,” I said.

“Oh yeah.  And you know I’m on parole right?” he said.

“Yeah, you told me that too,” I said.

He told me as many ugly things as he could tell me and said, “I just don’t want there to be any surprises later, b/c I want you to know as much as possible before we get into anything.”  I really respected that.  It was something I knew I would never have the courage to do.  Not having a record, not having any major setback I’d have to discuss in depth on a government form, I have the luxury of keeping my secrets until it’s too late.  But here’s this guy, who no doubt gets pre-judged wherever he goes, at such a place in life that it forces him to be better if he wants to be.  And apparently he wanted to be.  There were the don’t-judge-a-book type things, like about him wanting to be a pediatric nurse and how he’s at his happiest when he’s helping someone else.  And he said the customary cute things like, “I mean, I can’t even believe you even called me” and “I’m really nervous talking to you so my words aren’t coming out right” and all that.

That night my brain was going in all different directions so I couldn’t sleep.  But it wasn’t the kind I was expecting, the kind that I’d experienced before where you’re just on this high b/c there’s a person suddenly in your life.  It was more like he was this project.  I was going to help him!  So many resources that he didn’t know about and blah blah blah.  About God.  He said he believed in God but not in the Bible.  Said he has God’s love tattooed on his inner arms so that every time he hugs someone they get God’s love.  The notion was quaint, it was all very “Dangerous Minds.”  I thought, “now I understand why this person is in my path.  God wants me to help him.  He knows that I won’t judge him, and maybe he’ll help me too in some way.”  Maybe, just maybe!

So that night I was all high on my missionary vibes, either not knowing or just ignoring the fact that he’d passed preliminaries and seemed like my type of dude.  I knew at the very least we’d be able to hang out with each other for an hour or two without getting bored, so perhaps I’d have my date after all.  The next day was my day off, so he said he’d call me tomorrow after he’d finished his appointment up at the school.  I thought it would be good if we could get together and maybe work some more on that financial aid stuff he was trying to do.  It was clear to me needed to have a better idea of his options.  ”He’d be sooo good as a CASA volunteer.  Oh my gosh, he should do blah blah blah…!”  After a few hours I managed to calm my mind down but I didn’t get much sleep.

The next day I went to work out for the first time in weeks.  Not only was I suddenly feeling fat I just needed to get my mind off of the day and not go into crazy cray cray mode.  I didn’t feel like I would but that’s when it creeps up on you.  See once I find a guy that I want to love then that’s the end of it.  Done.  The decree has gone out.  It’s like voodoo.  I have to be careful which direction I look into, how and why.  It’s probably the reason why I end up liking guys that don’t like me back so often.  I wanted to be able to pick the dude.  I had this idea that guys can just capture you, which is kind of true, but I didn’t trust the process.  I wanted to be captured by a guy that I first had to know, or at least think, was worthy.  And then I’d be like “okay, here I am, capture me!” and they’d be like, “um, hey can you move?”

So anyways, he called me, and I went to his place to pick him up.  Actually, I thought I was just going to meet him over there and we would hang out, but he got in my car and said, “so where we going?”  I said, “where do you want to go?”  When I was driving up I said to myself, “maybe he’s not as cute as you remember.”  Much to my chagrin he was cuter.  I could tell he was dressing for the occasion, and any tats that could be covered were.  At once he was fiddling with my makeshift ipod which was my phone at the time.  I’d found a remnant of songs that’d escaped my entertainment holocaust and had been listening to those.  ”You got any rap on here?”  He found “A Milli” and started blaring it.  A couple old school jams came on and I gave him a few quick jabs about his age, to which he immediately showed his distaste.  ”I hope it’s not going to be like that the whole time.”  I assured him it wasn’t.  But it was really hard not to see those differences, and to not immediately point those differences out.  He was introducing me to new slang words for heaven’s sake, which could’ve been an issue of social circle, but anytime you’ve gotta ask a 22 year old the meaning of a term and how to use it in context, it generally means you’re old.  

I started driving around downtown, thinking we could find a quiet spot to just chill, but I didn’t have a definitive plan yet.  ”Wanna walk around the mall?” he asked.  The baby rattles went off in my head again.  What am I, twelve?  I thought for a moment.  But then it dawned on me that it had been an exaggerated amount of time since I’d walked around in a mall, and Green Hills was the closest one to us.  The thought of our broke asses walking around in Green Hills mall gave me a queer sense of glee, and I could tell it was the same for him.  Never thought I’d meet a man, nay another person, with the same penchant for cheap, obscure fun.  Immediately after having that thought he announced, “I don’t have a lot of money but I know how to have fun.”  It was a declaration, a precedent about how things would probably be with him.  I didn’t mind it.  A loaded guy would be nice, let the ladies say “amen,” but having experienced that to a degree it’s not enough.  And cheap fun is what I grew up on and what I adore.  I’ve spent so many words on the matter b/c it really is a key that fits some doors in my heart.  ”Cheap fun” is not itself the key, it’s the flower on a greater branch that I would go into but these things keep getting so freaking long.  Hate to end in medias res but it’s a miracle I’ve got as much done as I have.  Boyfriends seriously cut into my free time.  Go fig.

End of part 2

October 2nd was a typical Sunday.  Woke up late, no time for a shower, went to church, went to work.  I was getting used to the idea of working a piss poor job every weekend.  But I had a few schemes.  I ran them through my mind as I shelved worn books covered in plastic, touched by many hands.  Trying to use ambition to get me through a boring day.  Fiction MacCombe, Fiction Mead, Fiction Miller, Fiction Morrisso, does Mac go before Mc?  I’ve forgotten again.  Just look on the shelves for the established pattern.  Then all of a sudden, a boy.

“Excuse me, ma’am, can you help me?  See, I’m trying to apply for these grants and scholarships but I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do…”

He calls me ma’am because he knows I work there, not because he is young, though he most decidedly is.  I know what he needs before he gets through the first sentence of his spiel, and I know that his efforts will likely be fruitless.  He says something about the FAFSA, pronounced “fasfa.”  Someone at some technical school has told him about it.  His speech is hard, flavored with black culture but natural, not forced.  He’s wearing oversized everything.  I can see the markings of the top of an ornamented cross on his neck.  He is freckled and blue eyed, and as young as he probably is, his facial expressions are boyish and pronounced.  The adult, modern American version of Oliver Twist.  I’m of little use to him, and I have a sneaking suspicion that his motives to come and find me are dubious.  He doesn’t know how I old I am, nor how young I know he probably is.  All in all he is a welcome diversion from the monotony, so I walk with him to his computer.

In my mind I’ve already resolved to be nice, but not to show any indication that he could actually “talk” to me.  I don’t want him embarrassing himself.  In my three years at the library I’ve seen many male approaches.  Still, I respected him for having a legitimate reason for striking up a conversation.  ”I saw you and I figured you’ve been to college,” he says.  We look up websites for scholarships.  I can see him eyeing me in my peripheral, so I know my instincts were right, yet again.  I began to steel my resolve for the inevitable.  On one website he starts to enter his age.  At first I don’t even want to look.  But I can’t help it.  What year were you born?  He uses the scroll menu, finds 1989.  Selects it.  It takes me a minute to do the math.  Inside my soul laughs.  My guard is now low enough for a kitty cat to walk past, b/c he’s already gotten like five strikes against him, 1 and 2/3 outs.  ”He’s cute, I’ll give him that,” I thought.  ”Maybe if I was still in high school.”  My adolescent self apparently thought every boy who refused to wear their pants properly was a secret genius.  The lady next to us suggests some of the giant scholarship books we have in the library.  I know well where they are and he follows me to them.

“Can I tell you something?”  Here it is, I think.

“Sure,” I say, not looking up from the shelves.

“You are like, gorgeous, for real,” he begins.

“What?!” I reply in playful disbelief.  Not b/c I think me being gorgeous is old news or anything, I genuinely didn’t know exactly what he was going to say.  He does this about two more times, once saying “I can’t believe you’re not married, are you married?”

“No,” I reply.

“How??”

“I’m as confused as you,” I say, without looking at him.

“So, when’s the last time you’ve been on a date?” he asks.

“Can’t remember,” I say, without looking at him.  He gets back on the computer to look up scholarships specifically for Native Americans.  ”Will you help me?” he asks.  I agree.  He says he is part Native American.  He also tells me he has children and that he is on parole.  All of this I take in stride; I have no intentions of judging him yet I also know this is absolutely the last time we will ever see each other.  He shows me a picture of one of his children, he is enthusiastic.  ”Do you have kids?” he asks.  ”No,” I say.  He is puzzled by this, I can sense it is mixed slightly with pity.  His response makes me think.  He shows me a picture of one of his brothers, who is lighter than me but still clearly African American.  It intrigues me slightly.  He starts to speak of his fascination with kids, which I at first thought was perhaps for my benefit but then realized it was sincere.  I took a glance at him as he talked, so as not to be rude.  I was surprised at how expressive his face was.  His eyes were busying themselves with being blue.  I did that nanosecond life thing that I think only women do, but I could be wrong.  Thinking about my life spent looking back at those eyes.  I considered my future husband, which at this point was merely a two dimensional ghost of a written list.  In my mind I pencil in, under features, “blue eyes?  freckles?”  I know he is going to ask me out.  I have to admit, he’s made an impression.  I plan to be reluctant in saying no, even to tell him how cute he is, as a parting consolation.

I give him a book of grants and scholarship information to take home and ask if he has a library card.  ”Will you help me get one?” he asks.  I tell him they can help him at the desk.  After there is no further reason for us to interact, he extends a lifeline.  ”So, if I gave you my number, would you call it?”

As planned, I reluctantly said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Quick tell him he’s cute!  You like the freckles!  My mind was unusually frantic, as if him letting him walk away before he knew that would be a lifelong regret.  I said, “I mean… you’re cute and everything, but you’re just too young.”

He was indignant.  ”How old are you?”

“Guess,” I said.  ”28.” he said.  I was surprised.  I didn’t think he was prepared for me to be as old as I was.  Later he told me he really wasn’t prepared, he was just swinging for the fences.

“Close,” I said.  ”29.”  He was undeterred.

“See I think that’s messed up, you never know I might be more mature than you.”

On and on he campaigned.  By the end I was considering giving him a chance, not b/c what he was saying had particular merit– which it did– but mostly because I was clearly attracted to him.  And he was very interested in me.  To be honest, well…I won’t be graphic.  But we’ll say I was starting to physically react to him.  Okay?  And we were just talking.  About nothing.  And even after he’d walked away, and I’d gone back to the m’s where I’d left off, I was smiley and giggly and reliving it and forming a narrative to tell my friends.  From where I stood I could see him at the desk filling out his library card form.  He could’ve easily spotted me, which I would’ve been okay with, but he never did.  A few minutes went by.  I started to wonder if he was ever coming back over.  Suddenly I realized that the thought of me never seeing him again, or never having a reason to, was very depressing.  But that was just my poor, underutilized ovaries talking, I reasoned.  Besides, he seemed like the type to come back.  Even if it wasn’t this afternoon.  He’d be back.  But I was suddenly not willing to wait to find out.  The whole incident was notably different, and my mind dismissed it all as shock, a starving man’s reaction to sudden bread.  I did my usual “calm down girl, this is the last thing you need,” meditation to myself, whenever important things in life start happening near me but nothing ever comes of it.  It calmed me down a bit, I even started to forget about it a little.

“Wussup killa,” I hear behind me.

Really?  This guy is for real.

I flashed him a smile that was part flirt and part thankfulness.  I really was going to have something to talk about!  He gave me a piece of paper with his name and number on it and said I should call it if I wanted to hang out or talk or whatever.

“Shouldn’t you be getting my number?” I asked.  He explained that it’s better that I call him when I want, rather than him have the pressure of trying to reach me.

“You want to holler at me?  You can call me.”  I didn’t hate it.  I respected it.

“Aiight,” I said, doing my best to be street.  I spent the remaining hour thinking of how I would tell the story to Christina.  And my mom!  Good lord.  Couldn’t wait to hear her reaction.  When I first told them, it was purely for entertainment value.  Not so much that he was this joke to me, but just that to me, to anyone I knew, he was the embodiment of trouble, and I knew the irony of it made a good story.  I never hinted at any intentions I had to actually pursue the thing.  I figured I still had the will power to at least help him with whatever he was pursuing, especially if I kept reciting those five strikes he had against him to myself.  Still…I’d never been attracted to someone that fast, that easily, over so little.  Trouble.  My friends were enthusiastic though.  ”Go for it, girl!” Christina said.  When I told my mom she made me bust, not burst, out laughing.  She was about to respond with her typical protective mother spiel, but then she sighed a sigh of aged wisdom and a knowing about life.  ”Whatever,” she simply said.  Marini chastised me particularly, for about…two hours, we talked.  She’s dealing with a not quite exact but similar situation right now.  Long story short, I started to rethink how I was approaching the entire scenario.  The only thing that changed was how I thought about what I would inevitably do, which was call him.

I think that’s where I need to stop.  It’s already way long and it’s taken me a few hours to get those last three paragraphs out, b/c we’ve been hanging out downstairs watching Netflix.  I told him the entire blog was about him.  He said, “nobody’s trying to read that long ass shit.”  I simply said, somebody will.

Oh yeah.  His name is Axel.  As in “Axl” Rose.  And yes, his mother specifically named him after Axl Rose.  Except with an “e.”

End of part 1

As soon as the moment came, the moment that I knew I was going to lose to Self, I began saying to myself “I failed!  I failed!”  I was so angry and I couldn’t believe it.  I couldn’t believe it b/c this wasn’t a gradual process.  If you would’ve asked me 24 hours before if I was thinking of giving in I would’ve said “no.”  If you asked me an hour before.  I was out with my friends from church that morning and they were playing music outside and I felt like it really wasn’t a thing anymore.  I was indifferent to it.  Inside I thought, “I think you’re done.”  But I immediately followed it with, “nice try, Self.  I’m never done.”  And here I was, at the heart of the battle, in my mind, knowing it was over, this brief life I’d been nurturing was about to be a memory.  I must’ve said “I failed!” about fifty times to myself.  All while this was happening, Self was planning all the things it wanted to do and in the order it wanted to do it.

First order of business:  play the Mariah song.  I played it twice.  Simultaneously feeling like a kid in a candy store, and a murderer.  I was embarrassed and sad.  And also a little intrigued.  Because as I went to the kitchen to get my mexican leftovers to eat while watching the two episodes of Project Runway I had missed, to say that it felt “good,” was an understatement.  It felt like my life had gone from black and white to technicolor.  Like I’d been living without my arms for a week and someone graciously put them back on.  I thought, “okay, wow.  That’s a little much.”  I’d never felt that kind of… relief.  And it made me take notice.  I thought, “okay, perhaps I dug a little too deep.”  It’s like if you had a kid that was like, “I’m hot and tired,” and then they get home and they cry and get ill and have a fever and grow up with a phobia of heat, lol.  It’s like, “oh you were seriously messed up, you weren’t being spoiled.”  So I don’t know what that was about, but it was very strange to be both distraught and overjoyed in the same body.  To feel like I was being institutionalized and also in control at the same time.

The next day was Sunday, and I was feeling even worse for another reason.  The week before, I’d forgotten to put the trash on the curb.  The trash that still held my movies and cd’s.  When I realized it would be sitting out there for another week, at first I was upset about it.  Because to me it represented that my life wasn’t really different as long as that stuff was still sitting just outside the door.  But then I took it as a potential mile marker.  Perhaps it was a test to see if I would change my mind.  That I’d have a week before my old life is finally carted away, and I can get that encounter I was looking for.  At that time, I had no doubt that something was going to really be different once all that stuff was out of my driveway.  But I’ll never know that.  Because on Sunday, the day before the trash usually goes out to the curb, I opened the garbage can.

“That stuff’s long gone, you can’t go in the trash and get that stuff out, just forget about it.”  That’s what I’d been saying Saturday night and Sunday morning.  There was no way I was going to rummage through trash.  To me, that was the ultimate plan of the enemy, to make me look like an animal, and the ultimate insult to God, to go back through something I’d sacrificed to him and ask for it back.  Part of me even thought that the trash being out an extra week was God testing me to see if I would actually do this.  But I wasn’t bothered by that because the answer was “yes.”  Once something is in the garbage, it’s in the garbage.  That’s what made the initial act so final.  All that stuff was at the bottom of the heap anyway, since it was more than a week since it’d been out there.  But Sunday morning, Self reminded me of my portable cd case that I’d kept in the car and threw away, case and all.  ”That’s just sticking up on the side,” Self was saying.  My Self had come to terms with most of the music being irretrievable, but she had not lost her buoyancy over it.  But she kept reminding me that the whole collection represented thousands of dollars and that I should keep what I could.  ”Just get the cd case that’s sticking up on the side.”  I’m about to lose the remains of my dignity, I thought.

I went out to the garbage can near tears.  There wasn’t any vague symbolism going on here, I was about to go into the week old garbage and get a part of my life back.  I took the vinyl cd case out and unlatched the velcro on it.  The CD’s were there, intact, protected by the vinyl and cloth interior so there was nothing on them.  It smelled a little.  There was a single maggot crawling up the inside.  I flicked it off.  I turned the thing upside down and left it out on the table in the sun for a few days.  I managed to save a couple hundred songs.  There were also quite a few that were still in other places on my computer.  Apparently computers these days are more and more equipped to help keep you from losing large amounts of data in one fell swoop.  But I still lost every CD I’d ever purchased ever.  I don’t miss it that much.  That could just be chalked up to the fact that we all could probably do with carrying around less than we have.

At any rate, I was feeling like a wretched human being but I also knew that life goes on.  I had this feeling that I needed to be at church early for whatever reason, and I felt particularly obligated to follow whatever inclinations I had now.  I felt like, “I have to obey God without any hesitation now” after this wretched display.  I think what surprised me is that I kept thinking I had a thorough understanding of who I was and what I was capable of, even with brutal honesty, but the truth was I really had no idea.  I knew there was a possibility that I could fail but I just didn’t see it happening at all the way it happened, basically.  I got to church about an hour before service started and I kind of didn’t know what I was doing there.  I walked around and then I found a corner to pray, and then a few people started showing up.  After a half hour I felt like I needed to start a prayer meeting, lol.  There’s a back story to all that that I don’t feel like getting into.  So I started a prayer meeting in the children’s church area.  It was basically just me, and a few people came in and out.  By the time church had started I was still in there snotting and praying, lol.  Not even about myself necessarily, just trying to move on and just be productive.  Because I know God is gracious.  By the end I felt good, and I went back in the sanctuary and caught the tail end of worship.

During the message, I was listening but somehow I wasn’t, because God was answering me about some questions I guess I was asking Him, lol.  You know when you’re in that place where your mind isn’t on anything in particular and then things come to you.  And he was just like, “I just want you to be a little baby.  I just want you to be my little girl.”  I just get emotional writing that, but I was sitting off to the side not really listening to the message anymore, just looking straight ahead and letting my eyes blur with tears.  I got a picture of myself as little kid trying to do grown up things by myself without telling anyone, and then getting frustrated when the whole thing gets messed up because I’m trying to like, mow the lawn but I’m like, five.  And God kind of sees me from the window, going back and forth out to the shed like, “what is this kid doing?”  And then suddenly I’m a heap on the floor, inconsolable about some unintelligible plan I had inside my little kid mind.  And God just wants to get my mind off of it by making me some cookies and putting me down for a nap, and then have the whole thing be forgotten by the time I woke up.  You can’t control the way a child feels if she’s determined to be frustrated, but through the way you react to it, you can show her how little it really matters.

That was the first thing I’d heard from Him since the whole thing began.  The weird thing is that I kinda purposely kept myself from listening to God, like I didn’t trust that voice anymore b/c it brought me to this complacent place.  A couple of days later I remembered that a similar thing had happened to me a year or two ago, where I had this crisis of faith and stopped trying to hear God b/c I felt deceived.  God said, “it’s because you don’t have a revelation of me as Father.”  I’ve had a couple of people tell me this so I knew it was true.  Even the way God was saying to me about being a little girl seemed more motherly to me.  But I was just like, “gah, what do I have to do to get this?”  My parents divorced when I was 12 or 13 but I never felt like I didn’t have a father or anything.  I don’t think it really has anything to do with an earthly father figure.  But I’m just like, “okay, well then give it to me.”  I think He’s wanting me to get this through relationship.  He’s determined to prove that He is a real person in every way despite being unseen.  I do have this thing where I can believe what someone else has said over what I know to be true about me and God.  Because I have this fear that I’m going to be expecting one thing and get another, so I tend to internalize any revelation along those lines.  Certainly I’ve had that happen to me in life many times, and I don’t know how that relates to understanding the Father, but I know that’s the issue.

So long story less long, since then I’ve kind of gone back to the way things were.  I still think what I did and what I went through was valid.  I had a lot of revelation in a short period.  I don’t think entertainment is good for us.  The Holy Spirit was showing me one day how deceptive it is that we get caught up in the lives of made up people and ignore each other, the complexity of whom is far greater, a complexity that entertainment can only try and mimic.  And the closer it gets, the more we love it.  I can feel myself less attached to it than I was in the past, thought that could be due to the fact that a great deal more of it just sucks these days.  I’d still like to see myself free of it, perhaps just not at one time.  I was really looking forward to being the person without the tv, that has all this time in the day.  Now that it’s back to the way things were there’s a strange haze over my brain.  During that week of detox I wrote, I read the Word, I prayed, I called people.  Because I had to do something, you know?  Now, the days go by quickly.  Which I used to love, but now I can’t help but think my time is just being robbed.  I can’t conceive of a single better thing to do some days than to watch some tv show I’ve got recorded.  Turns out the dvr is much like the computers these days– it had no real intentions of stopping my series recordings, a command I specifically remember giving it.  Everything I lost was easily regained.  Except for Oprah.  Don’t know when I’ll be able to catch that ever elusive Oprah.

I definitely felt like a different person on the way to church that day.  A peculiar way to usher in a change, no doubt, but it was there, though subtly.  I didn’t think I was really going to talk about it at all.  I mean after all, where would I even start?  But then at the end of service I blurted out, “I got rid of all my music yesterday” to the group.  They all did that thing where you’re trying to fully discern if you heard someone right.  It was a lot coming from me, I knew.  I was always putting together playlists for the parties and constantly talking about music to my songwriter friends.  ”Why?” they said.  ”Just something I felt like I had to do.” I said.  It was a terrible understatement but there just wasn’t time for me to really go into it and it was pretty new.  I started to regret mentioning it.  But I know in the past a lot of people resent when I go through an entire change and come out at the end with this sudden new way of being, all without having told anyone.  It took them awhile to realize I meant that I actually threw it away into some garbage, lol.  One of my friends was like, “why didn’t you just give it to me??”  It was sort of a compliment, but it also stung my sensibilities in a way, b/c now in my mind this stuff was an enemy.  And it made it sound like I was being wasteful and rash, when I knew that it was deeper than that.  ”Even Michael Jackson?” someone else said knowingly.  ”Mariah Carey?” another said.  ”All of it,” I replied, feeling a little special.  Then the inevitable wisecrack was made about throwing out the Mariah Carey stuff being a good thing.  Sometimes my friends are jerks.  That was the extent of the conversation.  I still haven’t talked to many people about it.  I don’t really know how I can, where to start.  It was hard enough trying to talk about such things being a part of the same world.  Now I’m trying to completely extract myself, and no doubt people will have the same reaction that my Self had and continually has:  ”what will it prove?”

The next day I remember being a struggle.  It wasn’t the music this time, it was the television.  The night before was a major test:  I had gone without watching a new episode of Breaking Bad.  I don’t know if you watch this show or know someone who does, but everyone will tell you that it’s competing with a short list of best tv shows currently running, definitely among the best ever.  And it was on a longer hiatus than usual so when it came back on, every Sunday evening was like a gift from heaven.  I’m totally not using hyperbole with you right now, this is how it felt.  So the past Sunday night was my first night without my gift from heaven.  And though I found some delight in it being such an opportunity to show God my commitment, Self was majorly bummed and all of me felt it.  ”How long are we gonna do this?” I was asking the next day.  Just thinking long-term, I thought it was simply impossible.  There’s always going to be something to watch, always the next phenomenon that everyone is talking about, that you want to share in, to be in the middle of.  Every week!  Should I try to avoid spoilers or walk right into them to prove a point?  It felt so stupid to be realistically anxious about this, as stupid as it felt to be on the outside of it.  If I was on the inside I could be normal and this stupid conversation wouldn’t even exist.  I thought, this has got to just be a phase.  I’ll only have to do this a little while, and then I can go back.  But I also knew the goal was to get to a place where I wouldn’t want those things anymore.  Part of me still wonders how that will be, I’m not fighting it or doubting it, but part of me dreads it.  But while I was thinking those things I felt like the Holy Spirit was reassuring me that I was on the right path.  I started thinking genuinely new thoughts.  About everything.  I spend a lot of time thinking.  Thinking about what I’m going to say if someone asks me this or that, thinking about solutions to things, the state of society, that of the church, etc.  And I’m usually going round and round the same issues save for a tidbit or two that I might read in the Word or hear in a sermon (YouTube) that adds to my understanding.  But this time I was having new thoughts, and b/c of this new trajectory I was on, I saw myself having different answers, better answers.  I saw myself being a respectable Christian and not being so anxious about representing God.  I started to realize that this new territory was giving me greater authority.  I was pleased about this because it happened just like Jesus said it would, and it truly wasn’t b/c of anything I had “done.”  It was because I’d begun to do less.  I was encouraged by that and though I was still feeling the pangs I felt like I was in a good place.  I just had to keep reminding myself for whom, what, and why I was doing this.  ”I need to start loving God in action, and this is the only way.  Obedience.  Sacrifice.”  I just kept seeing Lloyd Dobbler.  ”I’ve got to go Lloyd Dobbler on Him,” I would say.  If He doesn’t know that I love Him I have to show Him!  I have to show myself.  I’ve got to be the guy now and woo Him.  I thought about how I would want to be wooed.  ”Yeah, this is going to take awhile longer,” I thought.

By the middle of the week it all emerged again.  I thought, “God knew this was going to happen, he knows this thing isn’t completely dead yet.”  By now I figured out that this was no fast.  I was in detox.  I thought, “man this thing has a hold of me.”  It made me super glad that I’d stayed away from the stuff that affects your body physically like drugs and alcohol.  I could never survive anything like that.  No wonder people think that whole thing is a disease.  The mental battle is enough, but coupled with the physical symptoms of withdrawal and you’ve got a serious fight that rivals any diagnosis.  ”The premiere of Castle is coming on next week.  You’re gonna sit here and tell me you’re really going to miss that?  He told her he loves her at the end of the last episode!”  I started to think about how all the shows have cliffhangers.  Perhaps in the natural the writers and producers of these shows mean nothing more than to keep you interested so you can keep watching.  Ratings and commercial time and all that.  But we’ve got to be just completely asleep to see there’s not something else  at work here.  It’s always the next high, the next great love, no matter what it is you’re serving, it’s the same story for everyone.  ”This is going to be my last thing that I have to do and then my master will let me go.”  The wages of sin is death.  Period.  I even said, “let’s just finish everything that we’ve started.  We won’t start any new seasons, we’ll just finish these last loose ends and the we can be done.  Cold turkey.”  But I thought about that scripture where the guy asks Jesus if he can follow him after he buries his father and Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”  I also thought about the calling of Elisha, when he at first tried to finish up what he was doing and Elijah was like, “bye.”  At times I wish it was a different era, that I could make the decision to leave something behind and then truly, physically, do that.  But now I’m separated from everything by a *click*.  I know what’s going to happen if I finish Breaking Bad.  I know it’s going to blow my mind and sure, I can pretend like I’m done with the show for oh, say, nine months or so.  When the premiere of the last season comes back on again.  Thank God for the Lord testing me now instead of later.  He’s saving me nine months of work.

This Tuesday Tony Bennett comes out with a new album of duets, one of which is with Mariah Carey.  Two days ago the song was leaked.  I haven’t listened to it yet.  ”I can wait when it comes out proper,” I’ve told myself.  As I’ve said before, the music isn’t big a deal for me, and just know that me not listening to a Mariah Carey record the SECOND it becomes available is a BIG.  DEAL.  And every day is a test.  ”It’s just under three minutes!” I objected.  Just a click, you know.  I gave myself the deadline of the release date.  I may wait longer.  Who knows, I might be at the place where I forget all about it by then!  Yeah, doubtful.  I’ve still glanced across a few things that have reviewed the record and says she sounds great on it.  *sigh*

Keep in mind that by saying all this, I’m not telling YOU, audience, that all entertainment is evil (nor am I telling you that it isn’t btw).  But I am telling you that if you live in this world, you are likely attached– perhaps even addicted– to something, and that something not only is ungodly, but does not have your best interest in mind.  And should you set your mind to be rid of this something, it will most certainly be as hard as it has been for me.  But it can and will only successfully be purged under the pursuit of love.  I’ve heard of people doing things for loved ones, and that seems to work well, but if you do it for anyone, I say do it for God.  He requires it anyway, and He actually helps you.  And he rewards you!  Though I’m not to that part yet.  Another unexpected blessing from all this was feeling free from fear of what man may say to me.  I’ve always thought I was going to meet Mariah and some other people.  Celebrities in general.  It still may or may not happen.  But what’s changed is that I’m no longer in danger of pandering to them b/c I’m in awe of their work.  Far from it– I’m trying to purge their work from me!  I was not so much in danger before, but I did fear the idea of having to represent the gospel and would I just leave that whole part of me out.  Now I know that if they’re in my path at all, it will not be for me to just tell them what a big fan I am of theirs.  I genuinely do care about them as people and are still fascinated by their talent, and have always said that.  But it’s hard to know who’s just saying that in a world like this.  I just find it interesting that this complete shift in my beliefs about entertainment has not changed the other things I’ve felt about my future but has in fact solidified them more.  Because though God would not have me be concerned about the entertainment, he would have me be concerned about what He values  most, and what He values most is the people.

End of part 4

On this subject, be it heaven or hell, it’s not often you get people to name names.  Usually if it’s in a book they don’t– they probably can’t for some contractual reasons– on an earthly level I suppose you’d have to consider that libel.  But this chick named names.  And I won’t name the names that she… named.  But the story that stuck with me was about this entertainer, a woman, that she saw who warned her not to listen to her music.  She said that when people play her music on Earth the demons torment her more, and she warned against listening to it, that her music is “just sending people closer and closer to this place.”

Now you can doubt the validity of this entire post if you want.  I’m fully aware that most people would.  As we learn in school, the more grand the claim, the more source material you need to support it.  This is what we all learn.  But before I was educated I learned to try the weight of things, and study the common behavior of man, as well as the invisible.  And what struck me about what this entertainer said, provided all this really happened, was that she made no effort to explain herself.  It was nothing about self-expression, nothing about her body of work, nothing about her talents or accomplishments as an individual.  And this was someone who did not suck, nor was this someone who’s music was at all lewd or objectionable.  This is a beloved person.  And here she was, saying basically that her music, that which we value up here, that which we would call her “legacy,” not only was it of no value there to her or anyone else, but that it only served to obscure that which was truly valuable.  Surely she didn’t know that at the time, surely she was just a pawn in an elaborate strategy.  Perhaps she did know what she was doing.  Either way, it fares poorly for the rest of us, who live in a world harboring an illusion so loud and so thick and so corroborated by all spheres of society that we can’t see that it’s sending us on a southward conveyor belt.  I wish you could see all the fragments of knowledge in my mind, all the bits and pieces of information plastered together all over these walls and connected with yarn.  Even I have to admit that it’s potentially the ravings of a schizo.  But I’m confident that if I could convey just a fraction of it all to you it would startle you how convinced you would start to be.  If I had the skill and the patience to show you how many words, how many resources it takes to keep a lie going, and how little energy the truth runs on, with twice the efficiency.

Anyways, so this information had reached me weeks ago, and it was changing my relationship with music.  I’d become more leery of it, more conscious of it.  Of how much of it boasted contrary beliefs to mine, how it exaggerated the sprightliness of emptiness, and the monotony and aloofness of true fulfillment.  It gloried in the least valuable things and laughed at the most valuable.  It was obsessed with having a good time.  Seems a little redundant if everything it’s about is so damn great and available and achievable, no?.  It also felt some kind of way about losing one’s mind and/or control, getting and giving “it” to people, and love that never, never lasted.  Even worse were the songs that managed to say absolutely nothing.  I was just about done with any music that didn’t point anyone in the direction of God.  That decision made a lot of nuanced changes in the way I was doing things already; not only with music but to everything I paid close attention.

Cut to this past weekend.  The thought had grazed my brain about getting rid of my music but the notion seemed not to hold much power.  Because of everything that’d happened, the music just seemed like scorched earth to me.  It began merely as a feeble attempt.  I started hacking away at my iTunes.  I went for the jugular though, erasing the most prominent of my smart playlists, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey.  It stung a little, as you can imagine.  But it was more a lament of all the time and energy I’d spent getting my iTunes right.  And here came Self, faithfully, stubbornly to remind me:  ”fine.  It’s not like you don’t have backups upon backups of everything,” my mind in a moment flashing every stash I had.  In the words of Q-Tip, my Will immediately was like, “now why you wanna go and do that?”  Even in it’s tarnished state, my music still was my most prized possession by a long shot.  I thought of my entire CD collection and with the exception of maybe an Outkast cd or a Biggie Smalls verse on Bad Boy’s Greatest Hits, I can’t even tell you how innocuous, how harmless my CD collection seemed.  I mean, Sarah Vaughn??  Ohh, I can feel the licking flames at my feet!  And De Novo Dahl?  Those guys are your friends, your Christian friends  trying to end the cycle, trying to make good music!  But I knew I couldn’t go picking and choosing, just like with my dvr.  Self would talk me right back out of it all.  My Will had been challenged, and so far hadn’t backed down yet, and simply couldn’t back down now.  I started to think, “God, should I really do such a thing?”  I started to think of every cd and how it was more like a memory bank than music.  Every phase of my life was contained in that collection, from the time I was a little girl.  Cooleyhighharmony was the first CD my dad brought home.  It was such a score b/c he had no idea if it was even cool or not.  Every cd took me back to a school I went to, a house I lived in, an epiphany I had, a transition I made.  I started to cry.  Not only did I realize this stuff was a part of me, I realized also that it may not even be good.  Worse than all of that, I realized I’d allowed myself to connect with something that could so easily be destroyed.

I took my large vinyl cd holder down from the shelf and started to flip through it saying, “Oh my God, my God!” because I was so utterly attached to these objects!  It was an investment.  It was vanity.  It was emotions and time and money, and so many songs I had simply stolen!  ”Thou shall not steal.”  The case was bursting with blank CD’s full of stolen songs I’d accumulated over the course of every year.  I’d stolen for this passion that I had with absolutely no remorse.  I guess criminals know criminals.  We know we’re being taken by this world, and we willfully do the same when the opportunity presents.  ”Serves you right,” we say.

At first I thought I should stop flipping through it one last time but then I thought, “no, if you’re gonna do this, know what it is you’re really doing.”  When I got to the Mariah stuff… listen, I’m a Mariah Carey, capital F, Fan and anyone who knows me knows this.  When I tell  you I threw away things that cannot be replaced, please believe.  RARITIES.  UNRELEASED SONGS.  B-SIDES.  RECORDINGS OF HER JUST MESSING AROUND WITH PEOPLE.  GONE.  Self was like, “The Christmas albums are about Jesus!  The Christmas albums are about Jesus!” lol.  Now what I think about that is, I can’t be excited anymore when the devil throws me a bone.  He agrees to let me hear about Jesus on Christmas and Easter, but he gets the rest of the year, every year?  Not even that, b/c now he’s grumbling about that arrangement?  I’m supposed to be excited when R. Kelly shows up on a Kirk Franklin record?  I’m supposed to get giddy when Drake and Kim Burrell do a collabo?  (that’s a completely made up scenario…I think.)  Or at least, I’m apparently supposed to back off completely and turn a blind eye anytime Jesus’ name gets mentioned by anyone.  Justin Beiber says “Jesus” on the MTV awards or Mary J. goes to church [again] on stage even though she’s just singin’ about crying and stuff and not doing it no more (yeah I went there) and I’m supposed to go, “oh, what’s God doing in them??”  I’m sure God’s doing a great work in everybody, but so is the devil.  And the devil is willing to play dirty to get our permission, whereas God is not, so we can stay naive about God, but not about the enemy.

As I zipped up my entire CD collection and carried it outside I was in kind of a stupor.  I opened the garbage can lid and looked down in it, where my movies were already laying, and I just kind of, let it go.  And it fell to the bottom of the trash can with a big thud.  I just wept.  I don’t know how one weeps “bitterly” but that’s how I would describe it.  I went back inside and flopped on the couch and just let it all out.  I thought about that song “Lead Me to the Cross” and there’s a part where it says, “everything I once held dear/I count it all as loss.”  And I thought, “now I can sing this song.”  Because it was really the first time I’d ever done such a thing.  I never had some slum life that I had to leave, never had to break it off with a boyfriend and move out or end any friendships, never had to sacrifice any tangible thing to follow God like the disciples did, like some of my friends have, not in one fell swoop, not by my own hand.  I was glad that already the gesture had yielded something, and it was clear that what I’d done had quite a bit of value.  I definitely felt “done” for the day.

End of part 3

Everyone worth their salt has at one time waited upon Him.

Including the Lord himself!

The LORD, the LORD, slow to anger abounding in faithfulness, righteousness and love!

Do I know Him?

Do I just know of Him?  Is it true?

My heart sticks to my ribs

I am sick with dread

I am a wretched being, living in a dream, sleeping on purple.  I have wandered to the bus stop.  I choose a destination.

LORD, come get me, and do not be angry for long!

Do not leave me without a way to make amends.

My tongue can do no justice.

I do not trust my praise.

I will wait!  I will not move from here!

Though others say, “Come with me!  I will take you to Him!”

I will not move!  I will delay you no longer

I will wait for your loving arms!

9/10/11

No, it wasn’t Shakespeare but I wrote for the first time in a long time on Saturday.  That morning I got up and went to work, mindful of the last 24 hours.  At some point I had a similar directive hit me about some my writing:  get rid of some of those stories.  Alright, I thought.  I felt my mind had chosen it b/c I was supposedly “raising the stakes,” trying to show God that I didn’t love my Self more than Him.  I was willing to get rid of the things I had written, things I had created.  I had two erotic storied I’d written a few years back.  I kept them b/c they were good.  Like, “should I go into this genre really quick and make some bank?” good.  I erased them.  You’d think that’d be a no brainer but it was hard.  It represented some future time where somewhere, in some context they would finally be appropriate, and there would be someone I could share that side of me with without there being the threat of a pastor’s meeting.  Did I mention these stories were really good?  Anyways, they’re gone.  I also got rid of a story that I was quite fond of, that I had been starting to shop around and had gotten some good feedback on but it had a darker edge.  My mind couldn’t help but remind me, “I’m sure there’s another copy somewhere.  Your flash drive, perhaps.”  This happened with every single decision I made and honestly, the more I think about it, I don’t really know why my mind keeps doing this.  Is it genuinely trying to hide this information from my soul but ultimately can’t because it occupies the same space?  Is it daring me?  Telling me I don’t have the guts to do it more than once?  Is it me or is it the enemy?  Whatever it is, it only strengthens my resolve, and once I get the notion to follow through it then changes it’s tune and gets all “let’s not do anything drastic!”  Or “what will that prove?!”  That’s another fun one.  I get all exasperated like I’m dealing with a crazy person and I hear my Self say, “Think what you’re doing!  What will this prove?!”

It’s a very strange feeling b/c there are suddenly two opposite points of view tangibly occupying my mind or my…I don’t know.  It’s not so much like the angel and demon on each shoulder and me in the middle.  It’s just like two different people.  It’s a situation I’ve felt before but the Self used to win out a lot.  I can feel my Self getting fearful that its life is about to change, or that my…Spirit, I guess, or my will, is about to make a decision that it will only regret and that my Self will have to deal with this stupid decision that my Will has made for the both of us.  It’s like there’s a married couple inside myself:  Self and Will.  And my Self is like the wife.  It knows where everything is and controls everything that goes on, but my Will makes the ultimate decision, usually based on Self’s recommendation.  And every once and awhile there’d be a dispute.  Usually b/c my Will is like, “let’s follow God” and my Self is like, “that’s cool, we can follow God, but what about this and this and this?  You know after two days without this you’re gonna be messed up.  And I have to live with that.”  And I can feel my Self’s apprehension and doubt, which is being fed with information by a biased third party, I’m sure (this sounding familiar?)  And eventually my Will’s like, “the wife is right.  Sorry, God.”

But today was different.  Today I had a firm grasp on what I was doing and why.  I was not getting rid of things because God was telling me to.  He was silent on the matter.  Everything I was doing it was because I was now firmly convinced that this was the only way I could show God I loved Him more than these.  And anytime my Self began to flare up in defense her treasure, our life, it let me know that not only was I on the right track, but that I was giving God something of true value– because it was valuable to me, it was valuable to Him.  As David said, I’m not going to give God a sacrifice that cost me nothing.  That is not a real sacrifice.   I also thought of those places in the Old Testament where they would “dedicate” things to God, and there would be a footnote.  At the bottom it would say something like, “dedication often meant the destroying of something completely.”

So after I rid myself of the stories I started to get the hang of it.  What else can I get rid of?  I started to think it wasn’t enough.  A few tv shows and some stories?  I remember it being very hard but just now it seemed like child’s play.  I needed to slay the entire dragon of entertainment.  Even though the message was clear and I had no intentions of doing anything but waiting on God, I knew that if I kept digging I’d find more treasured things in my heart, although my Self kept trying to convince me that I was as empty as I was going to get.  ”What about my movies?”  dump ‘em!  Was the urge I heard in my spirit.  Or in my wherever.  The thought made my Self cringe.  It was also faintly about money, the amount I paid for them and the fraction of the cost I could get back for them.  I only had about a half dozen movies left, the absolute core must-haves left over from my many moves.  Self was incredulous.  ”That’s crazy talk.  Getting rid of the few movies  you have left?  Right now?  Okay, fine.  Just keep them in a plastic bag, you can take them up to Goodwill or something, but don’t just ‘throw them away.’  Where, in the garbage??  You’re just gonna throw perfectly working dvd’s in the garbage, where you put trash??!”  And on and on and on.  But I didn’t want to put them in a plastic bag and leave the gesture unfulfilled for the sake of an optimal plan.  I didn’t want to give them away, b/c I didn’t want them to take up someone else’s life and attention they way they did mine, I wanted to kill them.  I just wanted them to end.  And like all ceremonial moments, it needed to be the dramatic closing of a door.  As I grabbed each one, Self got increasingly aggravated about the thought of saying goodbye to these movies, most of which I hadn’t even looked in at least year.  Still, there was a finality to it that was abrupt and a little unjust.  ”Kill Bill 1 and 2 I can understand, but Corrina, Corrina?  Really?  Because this movie has just ruined soo many lives?  What’s wrong with poor little Ever After, it’s beautiful!  Oh Lord, Ocean’s 12?!  Not the jawline!  Can I just see the jawline one last time?? (that’s sort of an inside, Brad Pitt reference).  I put them in a plastic bag, tied it, went outside to our curbside garbage bin and threw it in.  I felt a tinge of emotion as I made my way back inside.

For a moment I felt satisfied, I had made some grand gestures.  I was still unsure of what to do with myself in the midst of all this.  I think I may have spent a bit more time lying on the ground, but I do remember getting up and starting to journal a bit.  At one point I looked up the word “entertain.”  In the etymology dictionary, not the regular one.  The etymology will tell you what the words are made up of, not just what they are supposed to mean, which could change over time.  Both definitions made me sick:

Entertainment: late 15c., “to keep up, maintain, to keep (someone) in a certain frame of mind,” from M.Fr. entretenir (12c.), from O.Fr. entretenir ”hold together, stick together, support,” fromentre- ”among” (from L. inter; see inter-) + tenir ”to hold” (from L. tenere; see tenet). Sense of “have a guest” is late 15c.; that of “amuse” is 1620s. Meaning “to allow (something) to consideration” (of opinions, notions, etc.) is 1610s.

Amuse:  late 15c., “to divert the attention, beguile, delude,” from M.Fr. amuser ”divert, cause to muse,” from a ”at, to” (but here probably a causal prefix) + muser ”ponder, stare fixedly.” Sense of “divert from serious business, tickle the fancy of” is recorded from 1630s, but through 18c. the primary meaning was “deceive, cheat” by first occupying the attention.Bemuse retains more of the original meaning. Related: Amused; amusing.

Notice there’s nothing in there about magic or wonder or genius or any of the things I’d long associated with “entertainment.”  No one lives– lived– for entertainment more than me.  Music, film, dance, the occasional theater, no one could watch a movie like me.  No one loved the darkening of a theater more than me.  When an album release date was settled on, no one felt the anticipation deeper than me.  There was no simpler joy, no greater thrill, there was nothing that could ruin a day that contained the promise of potent few hours of guaranteed, disappointment-free entertainment.  Nothing.  But this wasn’t the first time I’d encountered something that made me change my view of entertainment, and what it was doing to all of us.

This is getting a little longer than I’d anticipated it would.  To be continued.

End of part 2

It all started…well, it’s been going for weeks now.  Little bits and piece here and there of information making re-evaluate what things really are, what life is.  But what brought about the title of today’s post happened, started happening, Friday.  I was sitting in my bed, YouTubing, and I came across this string of apocalyptic, eschatology, prophetic type conspiracy stuff that I often like to indulge in.  And I clicked on one that was like, “A Warning to Christians.”  So I’m like, “ooh, I want a warning!”  Really thinking that whatever this dude was about to say it was going to be for some other Christians and not me.  So he starts telling about this dream that he had and how at the end of it God spoke:  ”I know thee:  you’re in trouble.  You never know me” (the guy’s Russian).  So then he starts to explain about how a lot of us know about God b/c we’ve watched a lot of videos or heard a lot of sermons or read the Bible even, but we’ve never had an encounter with Him, and that a lot of us think we’re going to be with Him in the end, that we ‘re going to be the bride, but in the end He’s going to say “You never know me.”  He even says stop entertaining yourselves on YouTube (!) and get on your knees or do what it takes to have an encounter with God.

So at first that’s hitting me, it’s hitting me like a sobering word, and I’m thinking, “this is serious.”  I definitely got convicted about the YouTube part because, well, that’s what I was doing and what I had been doing all morning.  I thought, “is this really me?”  Then I started to think, “how can you think you’re the bride and then not be?”  That started to mess with me.  It’s one thing to believe you’re going to heaven but in the end be deceived.  It’s one thing to think God will have something favorable for you at the end and be deceived.  It’s one thing to think God won’t hold you accountable and be deceived.  It’s a whooooooole other thing to believe you’re going to have an eternal groom at the end of your life only to find out you won’t.   That blows.  

So the word went further in and it started to be unsettling to me.  I thought, “I need to pray and seek God.”  I had to let the dogs out for Christina so I just stayed there since it was quiet and prayed and cried.  I was like, “Jesus are we cool?”  I tried to be heartfelt and lifting up praise, then I laid down and tried to pray some more but fell asleep (fail).  After that I came home and re-watched what I heard, to see if I was feeling more peaceful, or maybe if I was hearing it differently.  I wasn’t.  I didn’t.  Then my roommate came in and asked if I wanted to tag along with her while she went shopping and I said, “ok!”  I talked a little bit about some things God was dealing with me about, but I ended up feeling more grieved by the end of it.  I couldn’t find peace.  I just thought, “what is there for me to do?  how do I get out of this?”

I came home, not sure what to do.  I thought, “the guy said get on your knees, should I try that?”  For a second I thought, “that won’t do anything in itself.”  Years of conditioning from preaching.  I got on my knees for a bit then I just laid my whole self on the ground and wept.  Not cried, wept.  I just felt so sorry and so misled and in the wrong place.  I remembered the preacher John Mulinde that spoke at IHOP and carried a similar message, after God dealt with him about his ways.  I tried to remember all the times God had said He was pleased with me, through prophecies and such.  But it wasn’t that.  I wasn’t worried about if God was “okay” with me.  It was the idea that He could say that He never knew me.  When I’d prayed earlier I confessed, “I didn’t know there was supposed to be more than this!  Otherwise I would’ve come sooner!”  And it was true!  People talked about encounters and things that happened to them, but I just thought it had something to do with the favor or calling they had with God, or the result of some drastic measure they had taken through prayer and fasting, or the situation warranted it.  I didn’t know we were all supposed to experience this.  I always grew up understanding God.  He was never a problem for me, so I just grew in knowledge about Him over time.  Sure there was a moment where I decided to really “get serious” about God, and I was sure I was saved, but was I the bride?  Is this really a select group of people?  And shouldn’t the bride be able to speak boldly about her groom?  In fact, isn’t that all she can really talk about and focus on?  I certainly wasn’t there yet, though I now understood that there was nothing more I wanted in the world.

I suddenly thought about doing something drastic, some drastic measure to show God that I was serious about wanting this encounter and starting this relationship as more than an abstraction.  I thought, “I’ll fast and pray and cut out everything until I get an answer.”  And the thought crossed my mind, clean out your dvr!  Immediately followed by the thought, “Okay now you’re just going off the deep end.” lol  In all fairness, I’d seen my share of similar foolishness growing up and like the literal “getting on my knees,” I didn’t think it would solve anything in itself.  It would just make me pissed when I go to watch something.  But the notion started to grow, until I was convinced that it would make a difference.  What’s more, I started to get a little frightened at how tightly I was holding on to my tv shows vs. being the bride of Christ.  So I got up from the floor, went over to my tv, turned it on, and started to delete.  At first I was going to try and selectively pick out those things that I thought were the most counterproductive, but then I realized there was no way I could do that.  I’d have to get rid of it all.

That’s when I started to get really emotional.  I couldn’t believe how hard it was.  I was disgusted, I was embarrassed.  I just kept saying, “how did it get this bad?  how did it get this bad?”  Meanwhile my inner voice was saying, “OMG you JUST got the series finale of Oprah that re-aired and I can’t believe you just ERASED it.  Really?!”  And kicking myself for not watching it last night or this morning.  ”You’re not gonna just STOP watching Breaking Bad, right?  I mean… you’re seven episodes in.”    At this point I didn’t know if it actually was going to do anything, I just know I felt wretched.  And then my inner voice was like, “that’s okay, there’s netflix, there’s Amazon, Burn Notice was getting kind of lame anyway” and all this other stuff.  My head was throbbing from all the crying of the day and I felt ill.  I called my mom.  I told her the stuff that was happening to me, as incomplete as it was.  All she could do was re-assure me.  I don’t remember what the rest of my night was like, only that it was tv-less, and that I’m sure I tried to pray or some such nonsense.  Oh yeah, my headache started to get so bad that I decided to take aspirin, though I was considering letting myself endure the pain, but I had a meeting to go to that night and felt bad enough that I didn’t think I would make it there.  But I did feel good enough to go, and at the end of it I just came home and went to bed.

The next day I got up in the same frame of mind, feeling slightly better but still contemplative and wanting to “seek God,” inventing that as I went.  Mostly I just thought of what else I could get rid of.  It started to dawn on me that the only real thing I can give God that is of any value to Him is my will.  Shall I call Him Lord?  Son of the Most High?  Great, everyone does that, or will do that anyway.  Demons do that.  Shall I praise Him?  Big whoop, he deserves it.  And if I didn’t, all of creation would.  Should I read His word, consult Him on every matter, accept His blessings and grace and favor?  yawn.  All that I could gain based on His goodness alone.  The only thing that He can’t already do, that He’s not already in control or possession of is me.  My will, my Self.  I had to find more ways to give Him my Self.  The dvr thing was a gesture, an invention of mine, not something He was telling me to do.  More on that later.  But I ended up finding out that I’d hidden quite a bit of treasure there.  Though it made me sad, I knew I was giving Him something of value, something I hadn’t done up to now.  On the second day, I still hadn’t heard or felt anything particularly conclusive, and I was still holding out for this encounter I now was convinced that I had to have in order to resolve this.  By that afternoon I began to seriously eye my music.

End of part I

This may or may not just be a vehicle for my Pinterest board. And also, it’s funny.