Tomorrow

If today was not an endless highway if tonight was not a crooked trail,if tomorrow wasn't such a long time then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all...

I have an interview tomorrow. I'm a little excited, not nearly as nervous as the last time and ready to tell my story again. This interview is for a lab job. One I'm not super thrilled about, but it is getting more and more appealing as I have less and less to do.

The only downside is that I found the perfect job for me. And when I say perfect, I mean perfect. It's a job that helps churches plant new churches overseas. It would pay and require me to travel, in the US and further. Yes, please! The only downside is that they aren't hiring until June. That's one more month, and I'm kind of going crazy being a bum after only a week.

So the question becomes, do I put all my eggs in one basket and wait for my dream job? Or lie and say I am ready for a career in the science field to get a job that pays?

I guess we'll see tomorrow...

I can't see my reflection in the waters i can't speak the sounds that show no pain, I can't hear the echo of my footsteps or remember the sound of my own name...

New Old adventures

Night has always pushed up day, You must know life to see decay, But I won't rot, I won't rot, Not this mind and not this heart, I won't rot. And I took you by the hand, And we stood tall, And remembered our own land, What we lived for.

This town, for how big it is, can be awfully lonely. It is full of promise and potential, with buildings rising up to meet the sky, and highways carrying people to their destination, and yet, when I'm in the car, by myself I feel the full weight of being in a new city.

Most of it stems from the fact that I spent a fabulous weekend surrounded by new and old loved ones, celebrating and moving and celebrating some more, so when I finally left the last one and was sent on my way. I could catch my breath and realize the enormity of this new major move. I've gone from here to Texas to Wichita and finally full circle back to Kansas City. I left everything in a storage locker and lived a year with clothes and a few essentials. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but opening the storage locker made my days of minimalism hit home. I have a lot of things that make life convenient, but I didn't realize how attached I was to some of them.

My bed. Oh my bed. It is glorious, and all mine. And I don't have to give it up to sleep on the pull out couch! If I could hug it I would. It has been too long old friend, you have served me well.

Horton, my blue plastic elephant. He is a good travel companion but unfortunately is too big to fit in a suitcase.

My dresser. It's my favorite bright Portugal blue, but I actually get to put clothes in it. Quite a novel idea for me!

Each box brings with it a new little surprise, things long forgotten, others that I have spent ages searching for. Each box is a very odd collection of things. I forgot how exhausted I was after graduation. Every time I open a box I think, "what was I on when i packed this box" And then I remember I wasn't sleeping, barely eating and burning the candle at both ends, so I guess it makes sense that there is a box with shampoo, text books, paint, and a pillow case. What type of label do you put on that box?

This is a new adventure, regardless that the destination is one where I've already been. It's different than all the others. I'm not living with people I don't know, I don't have to worry about living out of laundry baskets if I don't want to (and believe me I don't. It's amazing how many pairs of socks I found hiding at the bottom of those things) and I get to be around new people I love.

So here's to new old adventures. One's that hold even more promise than this big city!

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears, And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get over your hill and see what you find there, With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

just a jump north of the border

Come back to Texas, It's just not the same since you went away, Before you lose your accent, And forget all about the Lone Star State...

My bags are sitting by the front door. And by bags I mean a purse and a bag that would fit the size requirements of a carryon. A week plus worth of clothes in a bag that doesn't even require a zipper. I'm getting good at this leaving thing.

I'm headed south in the morning. Back to the big land of trucks, border patrol and breakfast tacos, where the weather is already breaking into the nineties and the barbeque grills are waiting.

I'm ready to see the friends I left nearly six months ago. I'm ready to visit some zebras, sidle up to the bar and have everyone know my name. I'm ready to switch my brain back to spanish and to struggle finding the right word.

I must admit that I am pretty excited. I'm ready to feel the sweet foreignness of a rolled 'r.' on my tongue and the burn from the jalapenos,

Cause like the song says, the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway...

...There's a seat for you at the rodeo, And I've got every slow dance saved....

Besides the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway

flings and rings

Sometimes I wake up by the door, That heart you caught must be waiting for you, Even now when we're already over, I can't help myself from looking for you....

I spent the night tossing and turning. My mind wouldn't shut down, wouldn't stop reminiscing. Except reminiscing has the connotation that I was working through good thoughts. This was a battle. I was walking step by step through the past. From the first date, to the final tear. Every tender moment, every conversation, everything that led up to the denouement. The moment where everyone knew it was over. The night was rough by all means. I replayed that old, utterly ridiculous break-up conversation over and over in my head, for hours it seemed. By three, I was so worn down and broken-hearted that sleep mercifully wrapped its arms around me and took me away.

What brought this on you ask? No, especially now, I'm not the type to dwell on this past relationship. I've moved on and am much happier than years ago. I've received closure, and yet he still has this hold over me. This night especially, I stumbled upon a photo a friend took of him proposing to his new girlfriend.

He's engaged.

Finding it took my breath away. When I started breathing again, I laughed, tried to put it out of my head, but it persisted. It wiggled its way into my thoughts and was always lurking in the corner, until finally i was forced to confront the fact that my first love has truly moved on.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't change where I am now for anything, and I don't particularly want the old fling to be pinning for me for the rest of his life. That would just be cruel. But there was something inside of me that snapped. It wasn't that final letting go feeling, it was more like he had given the final twist to the knife that he had stabbed my heart with years ago. That sounds super dramatic, almost like I need to be wearing a hoop skirt and falling onto a fainting couch. Or as if this is an troubled eighth grader's diary. No matter what this is, it was uncomfortable.

Normally I can laugh at the breakup antics, the things I regretfully said, even the forced conversations later, but not this night. I tossed and turned fitfully, working through the past. In the end though, despite the bruised heart and hurt I was feeling I decided that losing your first love is never easy, but you often have to lose someone to find the one who is truly meant for you.


...I set fire to the rain, And I threw us into the flames, When we fell, something died, 'Cause I knew that that was the last time, the last time, oh, Oh, no....Let it burn, oh....Let it burn....Let it burn

A summer or so ago

Ten thousand words swarm around my head, Ten million more in books written beneath my bed, I wrote or read them all when searchin’ in the swarms, Still can’t find out how to hold my hands....

The couch rustled as he shifted all his weight onto his one good leg. The mounted deer heads on the wall stared down with permanent fascination through glossy eyes. He reached his hand out and brushes the fingertips lightly up and down his arm.

"What are you thinking," he asks with eyes so dark it's unclear where the pupil ends and the retina starts.

"Nothing" I reply, which is only half-truth. I'd spent the week traveling back and forth multiple times across a three hundred mile stretch. I'd spent my nights taking care of others, and hadn't had a minute to myself in days. And to top it all off I had a conversation with a loved one that left me feeling like I had been slapped across the face. Mix it all together and I was restless and unsure, stuck in a permanent state of anxiety.

But he was fascinated by the adventuresome, brave, non-complicated me. Not the preoccupied one. In an effort to let the weeks worries drain away, I tried to focus on the T.V. I filled my glass with yet another drink, and swirled the ice. I even rearranged my legs on the couch to try and get comfortable, but nothing did the trick.

He sensed the restlessness, stared at me, then stood up and said, "let's go for a drive, now"

As I hike myself up into the passenger seat of his truck my mind immediately calms itself. He turns on his brights and rolls out of the drive. The soothing noise of gravel crunching under tires reaches out to console me. The miles roll by without even leaving the ranch. The lights catch on the desert sage and lavender, the cacti and even an occasional mesquite tree.

I roll down the window to remind myself what a temperature less than 100 degrees feels like, and let the wind blow away the last of the nerves. I pulled my barefoot onto the dash and stretched my toes towards the windshield, leaving ten little circles on the inside of the glass.

His eyes stray from the dusty deserted road, scan the length of my legs and land on my feet. The ones that are desecrating his truck.

'I'll have to detail the inside of this truck tomorrow' he says, as he rolls his eyes, mentally adding it to his to-do list. I laugh, knowing how much status in Texas comes from a big truck. Especially in his line of work.

He smiles, pleased with the rise he has gotten out of me. And we continue down the road, his dark black eyes gleaming in the cast-off light from the headlights.


...And after we are through ten years, of making it to be the most of glorious debuts, I’ll come back home without my things
‘Cause the clothes I wore out there I will not wear ’round you, And they’ll be quick to point out our shortcomings
And how the experts all have had their doubts

underpass

The train tracks run right through the town. They separate me from my work, and years ago I would have had to factor in the time I needed to wait for the train that comes through every morning at 9:45. A few years ago the town finished an overpass that let commuters drive under the tracks, whether there is a train or not.

Every morning as I pass the hospital and start slowing down to turn left onto an abandoned road that leads to my office, I see him. He sits under the underpass. He shows up with the morning train and leaves with the evening one. He is settling in when I drive by, and gets up to leave when I'm heading home. He's your stereotypical homeless man. Thin and small, most probably wouldn't notice him. His hair is cut short and curly, his beard is scruffy and his pack is full of plastic bottle and aluminum cans. He sits on a five gallon bucket and waits. Or watches. Or both.

Usually I wave, and think about him the entire drive down the empty road. Today I thought about if I had ever seen his name cross my desk. Did he have a past that I had catalogued? Was his name in our database? Had I been the one who told his potential landlord about his past?

Sometimes the job gets to me. There is only so many hours you can spend thinking about aggravated battery and indecent liberties with a child. I tend to start suspecting everyone. And I am pretty sure that just about everyone in Wichita is a convicted felon. I even have started looking into all the people I meet, to see if they have things to hide. The paranoia is slipping in....

When I left today, my friend wasn't sitting on his bucket, or watching the traffic. He was walking west, away from the tracks. I didn't wave today because he was walking away from me, and on the back of his sweatshirt were a pair of angel wings.

....‘Cause I heard Jesus, He drank wine, And I bet we’d get along just fine, He could calm a storm and heal the blind,
And I bet He’d understand a heart like mine...

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, Flowing into the night, People so busy, make me feel dizzy, Taxi light shines so bright

The music blared in the background while I hesitantly put one foot in front of the other. My heart was pounding, my breathing sporadic and to be honest my deodorant had worn off hours ago. The bar was packed. People on top of people. Girls who couldn't remember to hold eye contact, or even stand for that matter. Macho guys teetering between a drunken stupor and a bar fight. The second I'm through the door the familiar faces start to pass in and out. The ones I've known from kindergarten. That's the reason my heart is pounding. I don't like those chance run-ins where you do the whole nicey-nicey "how have you been-I haven't seen or thought of you in five years" talk.

I said hello as I crossed paths with them. Gave my shortened life story. And then moved on. I didn't hang out with them at school. They didn't talk to me. I didn't particularly want them to, hence the sweating and pounding.

The only common thread we all shared was that they knew I didn't belong. They discussed my whereabouts for the last few years, and talked of my adventures. The ones that took me to far-off places doing great things.

It was a good feeling to know I didn't belong. I've grown up and really don't miss highschool. The only thing these encounters made me feel, other than the uncontrollable shaking, was the desire to be gone again. They are right. I don't belong with them, the question is where do I belong?

But I don't feel afraid, As long as I gaze at Waterloo sunset, I am in Paradise