Communication

About 10% of communication is verbal.

When in a conversation with someone, about 7% of words are effective, tone of voice accounts for about 38% and non-verbal cues are about 55% effective.

Women use about 15,000 words a day, men about 5,000. People have made their living as writers, pundits, speech writers, speakers and a host of other professions that use words as their main force of communication. 

If words are of such little importance in communication... what's with the obsession with what we say? 

I think the older I get, the more I realize, I have over used, abused and manipulated words as tools to prop up my shallow need for recognition. 

So what does God do? He puts someone in my life that does not waste his words. Quick with a kind word, slow to speak evil, and never giving an opinion that is not invited, he communicates with his heart. It's beautiful to watch.

It has taken me almost a year to finally appreciate what that means. In my own immaturity, I have always assumed strength looked like always having an answer, having a comeback, being able to give the wise word. Little did I know, it was the opposite. To be honest, I almost missed it. I almost assumed weakness for true strength, true humility. Bring me low oh Master, bring me low.

What a fool I have been. Since when did I think I was original? GK Chesterton states in the beginning of Orthodoxy that he feels foolish since he feels like a man in a row boat that thought he discovered England only to find out it was his home. 

I am beginning to think that the most original phrase is the one not spoken. The most powerful statement is the one left unsaid.

How many times has someone "spoken" something into my life that I already knew? Then again, how often have I said something unnecessary that only made me look a fool?

Let me not tell you I love you, but speak it through an open heart.

Let me not speak words of wisdom, but in wisdom hold your hand.

Let me not abuse the mouth, but guard your heart through the bridling of my tongue. 

Forgive a foolish heart that propped itself up at the expense of authenticity.

Forgive the insecure soul that required accolade instead of honoring truth.

Forgive the spirit soiled by a mind that did not understand. 

May my favorite utterance be the one communicated from my hands.

May my treasured moments be of silence.

May your heart know my heart not by words, but by touches, by tears to match yours, smiles exchanged in joy, by purity in authenticity and may I know yours because I asked a question instead of giving an answer. 

Lessons in a Cherry Tree

I have been sitting looking out my window for the last 30 minutes. Its been raining most of that time. Not hard, not harsh, but more of what you would expect for the transition from a quiet winter to a quiet spring. Showers. Just showers. 

I have been watching it pelt the just beginning to bud cherry blossoms. Their light pink color is a contrast to the deep impossible grey of the sky behind it. So fragile and delicate, their color, fragrance and existence are a raised fist to the angry clouds shouting down a them. Defiance in their strength and weakness combined. I can't help but feel the martyrdom when one succumbs to the heavy weight of the water as it falls. 

The interchange between them takes me to a place in my mind I haven't wanted to go lately. I guess I feel more like the rain than the petals that struggle to exist against the broken sky. 

I spent a lot of time alone lately, that is until I went back to California. Then I spent a lot of time with a lot of people. My reaction is not what I would call typical for me. I have always been an extrovert. People are my strength, my forte if you will. I am usually good at people, and usually, they give me a lot of energy... this time, not so much.

I found myself annoyed more than I did refreshed. Bad drivers, rude sales people, family that isn't always family oriented schedules that collide. By midweek I was moody, irritable and frowning so much I think I garnered myself two new wrinkles. I am ashamed to say I was almost as anxious to leave as I was to get there. I longed for the solitude and predictability of my home made schedule and life. I wanted back in my ca coon of comfort and quiet. 

How did this happen? How did the one who scored 100% on a introvert verses extrovert test actually come to hate people, and how... sad. It doesn't help that I am dating Mr. Sunshine. I mean it's why I love him, but have you ever stood next to a really happy person on a bad day? If you are anything like me, it just makes you want to stomp on their foot and say "Smile about that why don't you?" 

When I was 17 and I started my round about journey of jumping head first into confrontation with God, one of the main reasons I started was so that I could love people more. That when I gave it was out of a genuine love that I had been showed. That I would have grace because I have been shown grace. Something like Jesus plus love plus Sara would equal a "loving Sara." Sounded easy and perfect. I wanted to defy the religious leaders that said you love other people because the Bible said so. That really made me want to stomp on their foot and say "Hey, why don't you give me the other one so we can really test that theory of yours." Yeah, I was a great kid. 

Now 7 years, a million tears and 77 blogs down, and well, the circle is complete. I can say that in this last year the lessons of grace and love that have been poured on me through gentle touch, Holy Spirit encounters, truth of Him, His character, learning how individual I am and how much grace He has for me have been burned deep into my being. I see Him differently. He has shown me the greatest of love and I have never been more grateful.

In that, I have to say, my own love, well, I think it has actually decreased. Ironically enough I have less patience, less grace, less appreciation of others. If I see an injustice, I don't hesitate, I point it out, and not only that, but now, I get really pissed, really easy. 

What is that about? Where is all this coming from?

Well as I have been pondering it, three thoughts have been coming to mind: 1. You spend too much time alone, 2. You live a selfish life, 3. You are starting to live out of the real you. 

Okay so the first two I get. The last one sticks with me a little more. When I was younger, there was a phrase that stuck with me "truth speaker." Somehow I inherently knew that is what I wanted to be. Unfortunately I have been given some of that a little too early. There are times that the truth of what I see in myself and others can be a hinderance, mostly to myself and no one else. 

I guess all of this makes sense as I see what God has been rolling around in me for a while now. The times that people have inadvertently really gotten under my skin and my need to point out their need to love better, combining with my own sense of how selfish and isolated I live my life have run into a collision course of understanding, and I REALLY don't like the outcome.

I swallow hard as I type this: the Bible thumpers may have been on to something. Now hold on! I don't mean that you love just because you are told. That is shallow and will leave me more exhausted than anything, but somewhere in between loving because we are told, and the magical formula I was hoping for is reality. 

What He is to me has to teach me how to love the right way. Right? At least that is what I am hoping. Now I know there are a lot of fancy terms for this such as "sanctification" and "killing the flesh." I just call it life and journey. I get so tired of the Christian jargon. Can't we call it what it is? Hard. It's hard. It's not easy, it's not always fun, but we do it because we know it's right. Because at the end of the day, this spirit in us that Jesus brought back to life and then combined with His own will not rest unless we keep trying. Unless we strive for more. There is no rest for the weary on this journey. Oh there are moments of peace and comfort when we are in Him, but we can't spend 8 hours a day in prayer and alone. That isn't what he came to bring us. 

The challenge is to take what we gain in the those moments of love and give them away. To choose to love knowing full well that it will be given to us again when we go back to that holy of holy places. 

Good heavens, for not liking Christian jargon, I just through down more than I really want to think about. Let's put it this way, I guess I am learning what love really is. 

His love for me does a few things in particular I didn't realize before that are very proactive. He looks out for my best interest. He really does want the best for me, and He fights for it daily. Granted He mostly fights me for it, but still, it is a proactive fight. He wants to bless me, and usually the only times He can really do it, are when I let Him (in Christian ease this would be called obedience, but I prefer to not call it this as there is more emotional baggage with that term than I really want to talk about). He will move mountains for me to to be near Him and happy and taken care of. Usually those mountains are within my own soul, or things that I have built on my own, but none the less, they are mountains the same. He wants me to have a fulfilled life doing the things I love. Now that one I know is true, I am just currently waiting to see what He has planned that is just that.

So how does this translate to others? Well, as my Sunshine boyfriend would say "When the people you love hurt you, sometimes you just have to swallow it to show them you love them." The wisdom of Solomon in the eloquence of a man that reads the sports page more than Hemingway. I spend my life writing thousands of words trying to garner the sort of truth that it takes him ten seconds to communicate. I think he was also eating at the time. I can't even drink water and think at the same time. 

Choosing to love is so much harder than it should be. You know what the funny thing is though? When someone does something that really gets under my skin, or hurts, and I turn around, ignore it, and just love them as if nothing happened, those are the moments I feel more like myself than any other moment. 

All of this looking for myself only to realize, I find most of me in loving others. Not screaming when they are two hours delivering my food and I miss my workout class. Not yelling when the won't let me into the library because I forgot my ID. Not telling my family every time they ticked me off (which would take all day anyways). When I choose to look out for their best interest, knowing that is how I have been loved by Jesus, that feels more like the part of me that is supposed to be me... Him. 

That being said, I am staring an experiment. I have signed up for volunteering on Wednesdays and Sundays with the homeless. I am wary, but feel like it is a good time for me to try on a new skin, hopefully one with a different translucence if you know what I mean. 

Simple is as simple does, yet simple is always harder. Go figure. Maybe this is how I become the cherry blossom instead of the rain taking it away. 

The Talent of Time

Today I am in California, tomorrow I will be in Washington DC again. I stare out my window as the California sun fades into the abyss and watch the casting shadows across the mountain that defines the valley I have inhabited most of my life. It's so green this time of year. The depth of the color is only heightened by the places that are marked by years of quarry workers digging for their living. 

The scene around me is so familiar. The way the sun streaks through the tree just outside my window, the way they turn and dance revealing diamonds of light. The roof tops of the homes I am eye level with, the smell of the asphalt rising from the heat of the sun, the sounds of the creek running behind the easement, the frogs that begin their nightly serenade. My nephews are playing outside the window and the strangest sense of de ja vu settles over me, as if I am watching myself right from outside my own body. 

What is about places that are so home that scare and comfort at the same time? If there is anything I have learned in the last few months it has been how much I despise change and love stability, but at the same time can't sit still for too long. I hate to move, but fear sitting still.

Time has the strangest ability to rush and slow you down. I have been dwelling on the blessings lately. The quiet of my apartment, the cold of the winter, the feeling of walking instead of driving. Studying a subject most people think they understand, but even those that teach it still have a hard time grasping the in's and out's. I sit and treasure every moment, wanting to infinitely ponder the majesty of redemption.

And as I linger on thoughts of pleasure, the pain of distance rings its call for notice and all of the sudden I hate how slow the clock ticks and how every day seems longer than the day before and all I long for is the safety I know in the arms of the one I love. 

As I continue to stare out the window and let the feeling of nostalgia take over and continue to sway me too and fro, I am reminded of being ten years old and calling for ten more minutes before I had to come in for dinner and homework. Whining and garnering a successful sigh from my mother, it would seem that it had only been ten seconds before she was back out again.  Summer was always too far away and never lasted long enough. I needed to be 16 to drive and 18 to graduate and time took too long; that is until I was 16 driving around aimlessly with my best friend, Smashing Pumpkins, Blink 182 and every other best summer song ever.  

Oh how some things never change. But even with that sense of irony still working its way through the atmosphere, I realize without realizing that I realized it, I hold on to the future with a death grip if only out of fear that if I don't keep looking forward, time will steal what I do have, and I will look around only to realize that I am no longer the child waiting for tomorrow, but the adult with nothing to show for today. Time is a sneaky bastard that way. The moment you think you have some of it, it slips away as if it's got a pair of running shoes and you are in heals. Other times there is a grand moment you have been waiting and working your whole life for, and it will never come. 

The hard part is harnessing that time with a grip that respects the power of today and inevitability of tomorrow. For me, the power comes in the power of redemption. Though time can't be turned around and minutes can't be given back, but part of redemption is the awareness of time. Like the force of gravity is respected after a fall, a healthy understanding of the linear motion of life becomes essential. 

It becomes one of the ten talents handed out by the master. How can it be multiplied? Not through serums or workouts to regain youth, but maybe by riding the momentum of the wave of time. A wasted moment is worse than a wasted dollar. A dollar can be earned again, but time, time can not be earned back. I guess the real question is, what does it look like for each individual to not waste their talent? For just as each pair of shoes will fit every individual separately, there will be a different fit of time for anyone at any given moment of... well, time.   

Burning the Past

The human heart is something I cannot, and think I never want to fathom, especially in combination with the human mind. With all the emotions that swirl, build; recede unexpectedly, only for new ones to crop up, it’s a wonder most people can function on an at least somewhat level manner. There’s anger, hurt, betrayal, joy, peace, comfort; fear, security, frustration, anxiety, loss (not to be confused with grief), humiliation, shame, guilt, freedom, hope, love, lust, hate, loyalty…. This list is endless. There seems to be an emotion for every color and number under the heavens. And beautiful isn’t it, for those emotions, combined with thoughts, and some predeterminations makes us who we are. They are part of the defining mechanism that makes the individual, well, individual.

And none of this surprises me, at the moment that is. What really has the ability to stun me is the complexity and unpredictability of those emotions. How at the least expected time, in the least expected way, they can resurface and drive the human to near madness at their confusion and distortion of real life. One emotion could be lurking under the surface only to have its face show as a completely different sensation rise to the surface.

For all the espousing I have done regarding freedom from the past, and to be sure it was done in good faith and belief within that truth, every once in a while, something triggers me, and the past is no longer the past, it is my present.

The last few months I have been living in the perfect storm for just such a situation to arise. Circumstances within my journey have set themselves just so to pick away at scabs I presumed long healed.

And as these scabs have been sloughed off over the course of the few last months, the nerve endings have become more and more exposed. Ever more raw to the cold winds of winter and the harsh climate of change and growth, as of last night, I hadn’t been able to fall asleep in under an hour since before Christmas.

Unknowingly, what I thought was dead and gone had come back with a vengeance to plant itself once again firmly into the cognizance of my own psyche. What this vengeance showed itself as, was a freight train of memories I couldn’t get off of. Every time my eyes would close, it was a round-a-bout of painful memory after painful memory. No rhyme or reason to them, just every incidence of my life that I am so glad will never occur again. All of the memories I have done my best to cope with, but are too numerous to count.

This freight train has left me exhausted, frazzled, afraid of my own shadow, unable to exist in a place of peace for more than a moment.

Yesterday, as I laid down to take a much needed nap, the same train came barreling down the track, and knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it, to fight it, I just laid there with my eyes wide open, seeing events replay in my minds eye waiting for all of the accompanying emotions to swell over me. And as they did, deeper and deeper I sank into the inevitable depression that comes when too many emotions declare war on your soul.

Knowing something needed to change, I knew I had to do something different. Something that was the opposite of what my emotions were telling me to do. I had to run the opposite direction. Basically I had to stop living under it. And I wanted to, I just had no idea how.

Later that evening, as I finished making my dinner, instead of taking it into the living room, plopping on the couch, fending off my cat and watching What Not to Wear on TLC, I went to my dining room table, sat down and pulled out my Bible.

Reading through a few passages, I began to realize I needed to write what I was really feeling. I needed to set down in paper, not in the third person, but in direct language to someone, something, what I had been harboring.

I didn’t know what I wanted to say, I just knew I wasn’t going to censor it. I was going to let it go. I was going to yell and scream and punch through pen and paper, then I was going to burn it, all of it.

So I began to right, letting epithets go, letting explanatives fly and the name calling flow. I said it all. I belittled and shamed. I told it like I felt it, said it like it needed to be said, and as I got to the end of the page, I realized I didn’t want to say anything else.

So I flipped it over and wrote to someone else: myself. I did the same thing. I asked why, and screamed and yelled through the page. I held nothing back. It was a schizophrenic moment that had to be born. I had to hate and love myself enough to say all the things to me that I had held back. Then I told myself to let it go. I told myself to not let the past ruin the future. Over and over again I told myself to let it go. I had to just let it go. It was hurting no one but me. And once again at the end of the page, I was done.

I sat back, wiped the tears from my eyes, ignored the incoming phone call, and got up. I grabbed the paper, the nearest lighter, and walked back into the kitchen.

I lit the bottom and let the flame dance a little before I dropped it in my sink to finish burning. Ironically enough, I had to relight it about four times. Every time I would relight it, more would burn, but then it would stop, and I would look down and read the words again. The fourth time it finally finished and as it finished and the last words disappeared into an ugly shade of grey, the strangest thing happened: I burst into tears like I haven’t in years.

Unexpected and totally caught off guard I crumpled to the floor. I didn’t even know why I was crying, I just knew I was.

There was years on that sheet. Years of loss, time, trust and love stolen. Not only by others, but what I had stolen from myself as well. What I had blamed me for that I could not have controlled if I wanted to. Mistakes I made in full knowledge that I lived in shame over.

I thought it would be a sense of relief that would fill me when it was gone, but much to my confusion, it was sadness. It was a sense of loss. It was deep, deep grief, and deep, deep hurt and it was a part of me. I had grown to know it, I understood it. It had become an odd friend. A partner and constant companion, and now it was gone, along with all the years that went with it.

I guess if I still had the grief and the pain of those years, they weren’t really stolen yet. It was a way for me to continue to live in the past that was already gone. Now it was exposed. It was all a farce. The grief and hurt were cheap substitutions for what I had lost, but what I was going to do without even that?

A day later, some of the emotions having run their course, there is a new emotion I face: neutrality. The train having finally left the station, I feel no real sense of joy, but no longer do I tread lightly through the minefield of my mind.   

I am not yet sure where this leaves me, where I stand now, but I do know it’s better than where I was. I know daily I will have to let go. See letting go is forgiveness with a different name. I may have to write more letters, cry more tears, burn more pages, but it’s a start. For now the memories are just that: memories. They hold no real power, and I am able to recognize them as such. Still raw, I wrap myself gently in the knowledge that whatever I believe about me, there is One who has chosen me in spite of ever thing. Like a warm blanket I purposefully pull it over my head and remind myself that though forgiveness for myself and others is part of this battle He has asked me to travel, I have His heart to fall into, and the depth of it is love for me.

And as cheesy and churchy as that sounds, in real practicality it means that no matter what has been done to me, or that I have done, He will always seek to bless me. He will fight for my future when I can’t. He will rescue me when I need it, and He will always battle for goodness in my life. Practically and in real time. Not as a far off thought that has little relevance, but more real than my emotions His love is constantly protecting, guiding, providing for and clearing a path for me.

For now, that is enough. Whatever lies below will find its way up, it always does. For now, the blanket is what is needed, and thankfully, it is provided.

The Economics of Relationships

I was getting ready for my economics midterm last week, studying the intersection of aggregate supply and demand. Sounds interesting, but really, not so much. See, as supply and demand shift, the theory is, there is a self correcting mechanism that will always bring the economy back into equilibrium. That if demand is low, prices will fall, and supply will ease up to adjust to the demands of the moment.

As I was studying, I started wondering if this invisible hand Adam Smith wrote about might exist in other places. What else in life finds an equilibrium, and what is the response when it doesn't? 

If we stand in line at the grocery store ten people deep, with only one checker, the demand is high, and usually someone gets on the speaker and calls for back-up, finding an equilibrium. If I don't get enough sleep one night, the next night I may try to sleep more, finding another sort of equilibrium. 

What happens though, when the fight to find an equilibrium is not as easy, or has the ability to "adjusted?"

Recently a movie that I have not yet seen, but have read the book with a cultish fever, has come out in the theaters. He's Just Not That Into You hit the box office with a little bit of a disappointing splash. 

Not that I can blame most women, that isn't exactly a title that screams "happy ending" or even "date movie" for most men. Talk about exposure. 

Anyways, the principle behind the book should be fairly east to ascertain. The whole point, is that men are actually quite simple. If they want you, they will tell you, show you and most of all, act like it. If they don't, the grey area that women like to exist in really isn't grey, it's the black of black and white and we just don't want to admit it. Harsh but true. The author poses the question, why waste your time? 

Well, I think Adam Smith, failed to express this one fact: though the self-regulating economies may be a stroke of genius, but when it comes to relationships, the balances are tipped, and women are coming out of the short end of demand.

The ugly truth is, as long as bouncy blonds weighing 106 pounds exist, and even worse, they get media time, men will always be in short supply. Demand is tipped away from anything less than ideals of perfection, and the good heart of a woman that desires love, family, home, future and commitment is SOL. 

Women desire relationship, companionship. Genesis says that woman was cursed in that "her desire will be for her husband...." I looked this up as I was pondering these things and found that the word "desire" is comparable to need. It is associated with overtaking and a deep demand. When Eve bit the apple, we got screwed. 

See, before the balance of supply and demand was even. Companionship was on the mind of both, but NEED was not in the picture. The man was free with his time and love, and the woman was confident in her own image enough to be able to enjoy without devouring. Now, we find ourselves in a different world. A world where the man's curse put him to work, and the woman's put her to chasing after the man. 

With the death of Christ, and the fulfillment of laws, that means that this curse can be lifted. Technically it should be equilibrium should be found. The problem is, not everyone's curse has been lifted, so women still find themselves in the same predicament as always. How do we overcome the curse without giving up on hope at the same time? Where is our equilibrium?

With the image of the many amazing women that I know, single, having been burned in the past, still hoping, and yet struggling with the tipped balances of an unequal curse, the only conclusion I come to is, though their curses are lifted, they have not met the match of another who has experienced the same release. 

So as they wait, I watch them closely as they continue to return to the pre-apple Eve. The confident one that only knew herself as she was known by her Creator. And the more that image registers in them, I know that one day, their counterparts will recognize it and appreciate it forever. 

Until then, damned be to all the bouncing blonds that keep screwing with the aggregate demand for the rest of us. 

The Illusionist

I shocked myself today. I was thinking through my week, planning days, mentally tallying the rotating to do list that never seems to really be finished, when I realized that I may not be able to get to the gym on Tuesday.

I work out junkie, I feel a sense of accomplishment at my "5 day a week" routine. Keeping healthy physically, to keep sane mentally, became a cheaper source of therapy around the time of my separation over two years ago. It came to replace the wine and Sex and the City addiction that had been gradually eating away at my practicality and my waistline, and for that, I am thankful. It was a healthy decision. So of course, it has stayed that way. Losing weight, feeling good and working out became a small stepping stone in the bigger lesson of living my life with discipline, dedication, and confidence that I had lacked when I was in my early years of youth and decision making. It was one of those few things that become a healthy habit that gave me that small sense of accomplishment leading me to bigger, riskier moves.

With all that as an understanding of what my "healthy habit" had brought me, what really shocked me is that as I realized I might not be able to fit a workout in, I actually thought about skipping a class to go to the gym. Okay we have just reached critical level. I would be willing to skip a class at a school that is costing me $40,000.00 a year, for an hour of cardio. 

"Hi my name is Sara, and I am a gymaholic." 

It got me thinking two important questions: 1) Why is this so important, and 2) where the hell are my priorities?

The priorities thing doesn't really shock me. As I continue to grow through a delayed sense of adolescence, more and more I see the selfishness I wear like a Cynthia Rowly dress and it is starting to piss me off. 

I had a conversation with my brother the other day, and we were talking about my generation and the sense of entitlement that a lot of my peers carry around. "The MTV generation," he said. "You all grew up on Spring Break, Cribs and My Sweet Sixteen." 

I laughed as he said it if only because I had been addicted to Cribs for a while in high school. He was right though. I am apart of a generation that is all about what they can get, how they can get it, who they can manipulate, how they can show it off and then how can they discard it for the next shiny thing. And I... am no different. That being said, continued talking about the lust for drama and attention, and some women never grow out of it. I revealed how even though I am an attention addict, thousands of dollars of therapy have helped me chip of a section of it enough to not be a total ass to hang out with. He said he grew out of it when it started volunteering. 

I almost wet my pants laughing while at the same time wanting to throw something as I realized that while I had spent thousands of dollars on intense therapy, my brother had spent nothing, and given time with the same outcome. Awesome. I am a product of my environment.

The only reason I tell that little ditty is because it was a great example of my priorities. If it is between getting my hands dirty and doing something for someone else, or spending  a ridiculous amount of money for an hour dedicated to talking about myself... well lets just say, I wish I had stashed the money, shut my mouth, and learned I wasn't that important by making someone else important. The irony cuts like a knife.

The second question is more interesting, but still, just as revealing of the same fact. Why has it become so important? The illusion of control and success. See I jumped off a cliff the other day. I took a little bit of a leap and did something I am not sure I am comfortable with yet, but going to get there anyways. 

I quit my job. Not that I was making oodles of money there, but it was enough to get me through the stressful times or the worries about upcoming expenses. It was a "cushion" if you will. Well, not that it was a demand, but God definitely laid it on my heart to give it up, and open that time to Him, and the worries about finances at His feet. 

Well, since I lost control of one area, why not freak out about another? Awesome. Just awesome. 

Even though it is all an illusion, and even though I know I was hiding behind to the job, the loss of time and the ease, I can't anymore, and I refuse to let the gym (which I don't even make money at) become a habit that turns into a vice. 

How I am going to do just that I am not sure, but we shall see. 

I will say though, if I get fat, I am going to be pissed about that.  

Presently Living

I got off the phone with my mother with a sigh. It never fails, she gets me every time. I laugh as I realize that little voice I so often hear is most likely hers. 

As I stare at the text book I should be studying, and am half way down the page before I wake from my stupor long enough to find I have no idea what I just read. My mind has been replaying parts of the conversation I was a moment ago apart of. 

"You and I have the same problem," she had said. "We tend to live in the future forgetting the importance of the present. We worry about tomorrow not paying attention to what is happening today."

As that thought sinks deeper and deeper into my consciousness and I recognize the truth in it, memories flash through my mind. Decisions I have made based on a nonexistent future, or moments I have grasped the power of purely experiencing.

As the thoughts wrestle around in my mind and I allow myself to wander through the halls of my own experience, I become more and more shocked at how few times I have ever truly lived as if that moment was the only moment that mattered. How seldom I have let myself become enraptured by a feeling so powerful, not because it is extraordinary for any reason, but because I let myself fall victim to it. 

I am a perpetual child believing that the next year, the next birthday will bring greater joy to my life. That I will be okay... then. When I don't know, but then to be sure, whenever then is, I will be happy. I will be together, I will be joyful. I will have my dreams then. I will have done the things I wanted, accomplished more. 

I have been living for the future so much, I never realized that it was the present that made the future. I guess it's easier to dream of the future than to make it. It's simpler to hide behind "tomorrow" than it is to move today. 

There is a certain allowance for abdicating of responsibility if the due date is perpetually a year away. It takes courage to live in the here and now, to accept the accountability of the moment. The power of the decisions of everyday to accomplish what is before you and jump off the cliff of risk that is before me now, not tomorrow, is the hard part. How often have I used the excuse of lack of time, then regretted the loss of time?

Not only have I robbed myself of a future by denial of the present, but I have robbed my heart of the experiences of today. 

I looked over at the calender that my sister gave me for Christmas. In big red letters I marked off the days before I get to go back to California and see friends, family and the love of my life. I sit staring at it looking not at the day I go home, but everyday in between, the ones I have marked off as unimportant. I wonder, what will happen those days? I wonder what decisions I will make. 

For the first time, I look around my apartment and really look at it. Not that I haven't before, but this time I really look. This is where I live. These are my things, collected through years and days. Evidence of my existence is everywhere, yet, I feel as though I am separate from my surroundings. As if I am living in a dream and this is what my imagination has come up with. 

With a start, I realize, this isn't a dream. This is my life, and time is slipping away. 

Immediately I jump up to grab the calender. I look at the dates and the markings. If I stop pretending that happiness will come when I reach that date, but if real life starts now, what does that mean?

I guess it means that this moment is full of every possibility that scares the crap out of me. It means that the longing I feel will just have to stay with me until it is no longer. It means the pain of missing someone means I have to ignore the possibilities of joy and excitement and adventure of today. 

It means I owe it to a heart that has been bruised too many times to nurse it back to health through allowing it to breathe. It means my fear will have to faced, and not put off until tomorrow. It means I will have to come face to face with what I am capable of, and that which is and will always be out of my reach. It means I will have to accept responsibility of this time and this day and make it worth it. 

It also means if I don't leave in the next five minutes I am going to be late for class.