Why?

Why is that we believe that when what we have has left us empty, we believe we need something so new it has to look like a different geography?

I have spent a lot of time contemplating what it means to start over. I have spent countless hours (including this moment) listening to Augustana's Boston. Opening lyrics being

"In the light of the sun, is there anyone? Oh it has begun...
Oh dear you look so lost, eyes are red and tears are shed,
This world you must've crossed... you said...

You don't know me, you don't even care, oh yeah,

She said

You don't know me, and you don't wear my chains... oh yeah,
Essential yet appealed, carry all your thoughts across
An open field,

When flowers gaze at you... they're not the only ones who cry"

When they see you, You said..."

It begs the question, do we what means a new start? Do we need to change location, or is it just the need to see something so different from what we have previously known?

I was having a very fruitful conversation with a few friends, when it dawned on me. We were talking about marriage (I know a great topic for me), when I heard myself saying "I don't know what I am looking for, I just know it has to look a lot different from what I have known."

That truth struck me so deep, I didn't even know I had known it. Life is so funny. We spend so much time dreaming about what we want, we don't spend a lot of time making it happen. I used to think that I had to leave what I knew, what I have been used to, to make something different.

"She said I think I'll go to Boston...
I think I'll start a new life,
I think I'll start it over, where no one knows my name,
I'll get out of California,
I'm tired of the weather,
I think I'll get a lover and fly em out to Spain...I think I'll go to Boston,
I think that I'm just tired
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind...
I think I need a sunrise, I'm tired of the sunset,
I hear it's nice in the Summer, some snow would be nice... oh yeah,"

As much as I have spent the last months dreaming and thinking that my life lay beyond the horizon, beyond the geographical point on the map that I knew, maybe, just maybe, it is about not knowing where or what we are lead to, just knowing it has to be different. I have wanted so bad to believe that if I do something to make it change, it will, but isn't it true that no matter where we go, if we don't change from within, we just take those problems with us?

I have spent a lifetime trying to change my life. Working to make it different, spinning my wheels like a hamster in a cage, hoping that if I can change enough, no one will recognize me. Maybe I wouldn't even recognize myself, and that would be good right? But why then, do I feel the need to take me with me where ever I go? Could it be because for once, I recognize that even I don't know what I need? Could it be that I am the one that needs to let go? Maybe it isn't the past, or the present or even anyone else that holds me back, it is just me? It is my own struggle to see that beyond my image of myself lies the truth? Paul in Scripture says that "We see dimly now, but one day our vision will be clear." Okay I am paraphrasing, but you get the point.

Yes, I want to leave behind what I don't want apart of me, and yes I want to be different, but can I release enough to know that maybe I don't know what I do want to look like? Can I drop my preconceived notions and just hope? Can I believe that there is hope and it doesn't have to look like a move, or a new characteristic, or even new thoughts, but maybe, it is something I didn't even think of. We are told that we change, but how many of us think we know what we need to change into? And then how many of us actually change into that? Could it be that it is a good thing that we don't control our own lives? Hopefully.......