absolute beginners

When I was a teenager, I always wanted to get amnesia somehow.
I thought it would be great to wipe the slate clean and start over. A good way to escape.

Now I'm getting closer to 30, and I feel like I have amnesia all the time. I realized, hanging out with Kelsea the other night, that I've lost most of the memories of high school. This morning I had a brief flashback to one of my classes at the U that was in a building where I never had any other classes, and the teacher was this tiny woman with a child's haircut and a doctorate, who taught me about Frankenstein and I wrote her a ten page paper on Silence of the Lambs.  And then I was sad to learn that I've also lost a lot of the memories of college.

I wonder how much of this was alcohol's gift to me, and how much is just getting older. Dear teenage me; is this what you wanted? It has taken away the sting of old lovers, but also the warmth of time with friends.

I do have so much hope for new memories. Driving to work today, I thought about what Spain or Ireland would be like for sober me. For the hope of new love and new friends and new memories with old friends.

My insomnia used to give me so much anxiety but now I try to look at it like God just wanted to give me more hours in my day than normal people get.

Noah-isms

Mom: Oh so Rachel's invited now?
Noah: Well, Rachel's not very annoying.

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"It's the only show that's made me emotionally smile."
-about 11.22.63

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"You can kill a man's soul but can't take his carbs away... even an atheist eats carbs."

I let myself feel things now because I don't have a choice.

I feel happy and recharged.
I feel sad, and I can't mask it with something. I let myself have a milkshake and I tell all my problems to the dog. The dog says, let's go for a walk.

I go for a walk. Feel angry that I feel love. I feel angry that I might be in love with a fool, and also feel angry that my sinuses hurt and my throat is swollen and I have to take care of myself.

And I'm grateful. For all the minutes of it. The minute I want to be with Jesus more than here. The minute the sun rises and the fields glow. The minute my coffee reaches drinking temperature.

I get tired of being the bad guy. When I get tired, I go to bed, and then tomorrow we lace up our boots.          

I told You I'd never be in Your army again, but the fight--and Your mercy--sucked me back in.

Parley's

The spiritually sick attract the spiritually sick, Mackenzie says. And while my soul knows parts of your soul, and my soul loves parts of your soul, my soul is suspicious of your soul. My soul wants to go in the washing machine. And then it wants to stand outside in the Pines and clean air.