It took 22 years, but you ended it. Really not in the way you thought you would, or even wanted to… but that tradition finally got put to pasture.
Looking back, it was getting to be an occasion for self indulgence, celebrating an accomplishment that seems more and more pedestrian as the years continue – not because it was… just… that as you grow older you realize that some things just don’t need to hold the same level of reverence.
Seemed like the same conversation with Him every year towards the end, until last year, when you realized you finally didn’t need it anymore. Last year, the Cistern was for once filled with CofC’s Alumni event. Traditional night would change, no matter once. And that’s when you felt Him smiling that “finally, you get it” smile.
What were you celebrating all those years? The happiest day of your life, that finally had changed? Apparently so. Sure, you couldn’t have done it without Him, but… that was a given. Just a given.
By now, you would have had decades to recover had that night not happened, and yet… you were celebrating what you did. Not what was done for you.
Ironic that last year’s May 14 was a tradition changed due to the happiness that had led to that day now finally becoming the second happiest day in your life, but unbeknownst to you, you’d spend it in the company of a thousand or so of your fellow alums who you were finally joining in moving on.
The first time since that day that May 14 falls on a Mother’s Day Sunday means now the beginning of newness.
The mundanity of spending it in rural West Texas working to build this chaotic new career with no connection to your beloved Cistern just oddly feels exactly the way it ought to be.
Cigar and convo with God are still on the menu – because you finally realized the most important thing that happened all those years ago wasn’t the day you “won”.
It was the night He showed you the kind of faith you’ve taken for granted. You’d remembered that night too, November 18, but it was an afterthought.
The date doesn’t matter. Only the gift does. His gift. The Cistern will always be sacred. But it’s not what matters.
Who you were in those days… was different. You didn’t have the Joy in your heart you do now. The vibrance. You were quieter. Lost a lot of the confidence you set out into the world with when you left home for the first time.
You believed in Him because you were raised to, and that faith was strong for what it was… but in the days since that night, what you had in your heart you had because you knew it was true; not because you were told.
Since then, you’ve learned of many that have testimonial experiences. Stands to reason. Suffice to say, now you have a Joy in your heart that just isn’t going to go away.
That’s the gift. Not what it anllo you to do. And it’s in your heart. Not your beloved Cistern.
Ne grateful to everyone who has been a part of your journey here. Especially on Mother’s Day.
And no, never forget how amazing the Cistern was. It was the second happiest time of your life.
In time, here’s hoping it’ll one day be the third. You never thought it would be the second. 😂
Either way, cigar tonight is in a hotel chair outside in northern Texas, ready for brutally physical work that transforms into a massive sense of accomplishment.
Thank God for this opportunity and every other blessing.
Well, it actually begin a while ago. But wow if this isn’t the best season. Mid-seventies and deep blue sky.
Crazy how things are working. So much uncertainty in how ends will meet followed by realizing that store money is on the way and then another week or two in Texas is on the horizon. Ought to be easier than Pennsylvania, which, definitely what is the hardest any of the vets had ever worked, and you *can* handle it. So you’re OK there.
Enjoying the outside needs to be something you do more. Things are slowly picking up in the social life. Looks like many are coming out of their shells for spring time, and it will go for months. Endless Summers.
Spring and summer just feel so energetic. Makes you want to get out and do things. Try new things. Meet new people. Feel the wind and waves.
You have a decent amount of time and can set your hours as you see fit. Which means finding more gigs and branching out into more things.
Probably won’t always be this way, especially the way things are going in the economy, but now is a good time to enjoy yourself and the freedom that you have. Try to build up some capital and build something bigger. Hopefully you’ll have some more input soon. 🤔
Be grateful for all your blessings. Never forget you have nothing that God has not given you, that you have not accomplished anything without Him helping you, and even if He took away everything you have tomorrow, what is a few decades of mundanity compared to literal Endless Summers in Heaven?
So get closer to Jesus. Advice that is literally never a bad idea. Home is not in this world, so quit focusing so much on the latter.
Even when things are going well, it’s never a bad time to work on bettering yourself. 🤔
There is nothing wrong with being normal. Such an odd sentiment, lol. The worlds is full of people desperate to be different. Fill their lives with drama. Maybe they’re just not happy with themselves.
So many people acting like there is this “lived experience” others are obligated to kowtow to. Sure you don’t understand what it’s like to have lived someone else’s life. That doesn’t make them better than you or their problems mean more, or vice versa.
What is it with people today? So many claim to be unhappy with who they are. Born in the wrong body. You don’t know what my childhood was like. I’m of this kind of person and you just have to respect that – or you’re just a terrible horrible person, and bigoted against people who are desperate to feel like they are different than you.
One of a million things to make them all feel special and unique. To what end? Pretty much… dopamine. 🤔
Anger is a big releasor, as is sanctimony. People trying to fill holes in their lives with a sense of unearned superiority.
As annoying as tendinitis is, it’s a lot better to have problems like it.😂
Makes you think about a war vet wheeling around because they are missing a leg or two.
Someone fighting cancer as they make sure they can make their kids’ Little League game.
A grandparent who doesn’t even have a clue how self-centered the “I’m different!” crowd is as they buy their grandkids birthday presents not being worried about them prattling on about being non-binary because they’re just kids being kids.
It’s almost as if traditional values survived to become traditional values because…they actually work in the long run.
Sure, you are unique. Just like everyone else is. And you’re fine with that. There’s literally no one on this planet, who is exactly like you. Never has been, or will be.
What does that mean? Nothing. Except it’s fascinating how that isn’t enough for so many of the drama queens out there.
What’s so much more important is the feeling of being special… *to someone*.
Too old for bed weed, man. Sift through the drama queens; you’re in your mid 40s. And at a certain point, all that seems to run together.
As always, get closer to God. There’s really not much else you need.
Lots of prayers for people in your life right now who have health problems. Try to be strong for them. Prayers of the devout carry more weight. So there’s no reason not to try to be more so. All you can do.
Physically and spiritually – eat your vegetables. Try to get better sleep. Be grateful for all of your blessings.
And stop forgetting to do your exercises. The arm isn’t going to fix itself and two weeks in Texas loom on the horizon.
You wanted this to be her. You just wanted to give her everything you had, were, and would ever be.
The ocean meeting the sand, her sandled toes in the middle. Wind of Folly in the air. Holy City springtime with just enough of a cold breeze to remind her of home. Where there is warmth, and life. Love, kindness, and happiness.
And it all ended a year ago tonight. If nothing else, it certainly made St Patty’s the next day “retro”. At least now you can stop with the “a year ago” stuff; it’s less raw.
And as more time passes, it gets easier. Much easier.
You gave her everything you possibly could. It’s not like you weren’t kind enough, or didn’t do enough.
At the end of the day you were a chance, and wanted to share with her everything that you had, but she never did. All she had to do was grow and leave the Jerry Springer drama behind.
Manufactured anger never made sense to you. Yelling because you ‘want to win’ with someone you love means you don’t even realize you have won because you are loved to begin with.
How insecure does a person have to be to feel better about themselves by fighting over nonsense with those they supposedly care about?
At the end of the day, that’s the life she apparently wanted. You showed her life of warmth, kindness, cooperation, and happiness; and went out of your way to have her around the folks as much as you could so she could see what you wanted for her when your own words failed.
You’re not putting up with a Jerry Springer life. You grew up in a happy and healthy environment, and aren’t particularly interested in anything about having pain and anger simply for the sake of having pain and anger.
Is that from naïveté? Growing up spoiled? No. It’s a choice. And you choose not to have dysfunction for the sake of dysfunction. That’s high school drama and has been pathetic for decades now.
You have no idea how much of what she said about the other guy was even true. What she said about you to others. You realized she used each of you to hurt the other, and when you did, that was the end of a lot of anger.
You wish her well now, and even the folks say they still pray for her. They always liked her because there was so much to like. They were never worried about you being with her because they know how good she was deep down – they saw it – and they knew you knew what you were getting into.
It’s Jesus or bust if we ever want to be truly happy; anyone trying things their way is doomed to failure while shouting at the universe like it’s its fault – when we are the ones that always try to make the rules.
You tried that once or twice – doing things your own way. Never worked. Because it doesn’t work. And the more arrogant we are about it, the harder it eventually hurts when the inevitable crash hits.
You pray for her constantly as well; hoping she finds her way Home.
You still know you were meant to be together. But that requires each of you choosing it, and choosing to grow together. Love. Work. Time. Patience. Her priorities were different.
And that’s pretty much that.
A year since you heard her voice. And an awful lot has happened in that year. Most of it good in retrospect. Tough times you needed to go through. Out of left field amazing times you weren’t really expecting. Opportunities to repeat mistakes you chose not to avail yourself to. New mistakes made along the way as always. Pain of losing Bellerophon. Tacit understanding that God was telling you you were ready to move on from where you’ve been the last decade… and that you’ll see him again one day and find out what he really was.
You have no idea where the future is going in your life; but you know backwards is not the way to look. Leave the demons of the past in that past. Grow.
Keep it bookmarked at Psalms 46 if you need fortitude at anything coming down the pipe. Try to stay open to God’s light and never give in to cynicism. A strong man never begs for love, and a wise man knows mistakes aren’t worth repeating.
Feel the warmth of the life you have, enjoy the sands. The water. The breeze. The sky. Everything you have. Your family. Everything you are. The Love of God, what you treasure the most. The Peace that brings to you, and the love you seek to share. Breathe. And be ever grateful for the life you have.
Things could always be worse… and you’re going to be alright if you choose to be.🙂
How? We standardize excellence. It’s insidious. It really is. There seems to be an obsession with standardization. Uniformity. Categories. Boxes. To the point where… it’s refreshing to see exceptions to the rule, if not just to spite the simplicity so many Americans have for hating dangling threads; wrinkles that make life more interesting.
From 1895 to 1940, a total of 71 American battleships were authorized and named – all named for States (obviously with some names reused, lol). From USS Indiana BB-1 to USS Louisiana BB-71, everything nice…neat…industrialized…bankrupt of creativity.
For once (ever), thank Congress though, in 1896 – for requiring BB-3 to be named USS Kearsarge, in honor of an 1861 sloop of war, that was named for a mountain in Vermont or something.
Why? Because screw you that’s why. You’re telling me the Brits get to have amazing names for fearsome shops like Iron Duke, Orion, and freaking WARSPITE, while we’re wallowing in noncreativity naming fearsome ships after Rhode freaking Island? Screw it… ANY state so pathetically cowardly to stay in lying rat bastard “honest Abe*’s” sacred union?
Yankees. Pathetic. At least they have their moments. A spark of creativity did ignite in a congressman’s brain in naming Kearsarge (the sloop that sank the CSS Alabama, proving that even when they do have two brain cells to rub together it still has to have something to do with their self-flagellation of trashing their own constitution just to stop their cousins from leaving the apparent roach motel they called a free country in such a way to lie to African-Americans and pretend they weren’t neck-deep in benefiting off slavery themselves just so they can play the “aren’t you grateful?” game with them after obliterating, raping, and pillaging those same erstwhile cousins’ lands to keep them down for a hundred years to come?)
What were you saying? Oh, right.
Now do cruisers. Cities. Heavy Cruisers? Big cities. Light cruisers? You’ll never guess. Behold the fearsome USS Savannah. Kill our enemies with laughter. But thanks for saving us, exception to the rule USS Vincennes CL-64.
Where is Neptune? Tiger? Vanguard? I get why there was never a USS WARSPITE; even after she retired, they wouldn’t be able to cut her up for scrap; they barely were able to cut up the British one.
(God bless autocorrect for once only for all-caps-ing WARSPITE 😂)
Battleships. States.
Cruisers. Cities.
Carriers. Battles (at least this gives some cool names. Someone must have hurt themselves.)
Battlecruisers? Creativity? Nope. Territories. I swear. Meh. The French weren’t much better, but c’mon. The Sea is a vast, mysterious mistress, demanding respect, and you give her tripe like the “uss peoria”? (doesn’t deserve any capital letters).
“Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.” – basically how the US won all its wars after 1814: by superior technology and organization defeating spirit, heart, and individual skill.
Alexander the Great brought to his knees by a metaphorical Walmart 12 pack of tube socks.
College Football. One conference playing 8 conference games while most others play 9? What’s wrong with you? What do you think you are? Unique? With rivalries dating back well over a century you don’t want to lose? What’s geography? Southern Cal playing Stanford since the daggum Hayes Administration and you’re cashing that in to play conference games against Maryland? What the…?
Oh. Right. The Big Ten was at only at 14 teams and the SEC went to 16. And 16 is easily divisible by four. To hell with uniqueness. Everything must be ubiquitous. Standardized. Like the NFL. Boring, sterile, and pointless. But what matters is the number 32.
Good luck being a wrinkle that makes things just a little different, Notre Dame, trying to enjoy being independent in a sea of conferences. Everyone that matters will be in homogeneity of assembly-line conferences, traditions be damned.
Have an idea for a fun, niche mom-and-pop store selling different kinds of decorative accessories? Too bad, because brain-dead losers will waddle around and leave, saying “I can get one like that at Waal-Maht cheapah ”.
Well go get one. Made in China and not Virginia Metalcrafters, ya freaking Philistine. Made by literal slaves, but don’t let that stop you from sucking your own dicks at how angels sang when Lincoln read the emancipation proclamation that freed absolutely bloody no one.
Damn you, Booth. For eternity. For killing Lincoln the redcoat four years late. America had something unique under the Constitution, but because of that jackass we just had to be like everyone else with a centralized power structure for the sake of weak ass “men” who wanted to run a country rather than be the public servants they’re supposed to be. Then having the gall to act like they ended slavery while establishing their countrymen as third-world peasants in their own country.
You try not to curse online, but fuck it. Fuck these degenerate pricks. Jefferson the Yankee pieces of shit that try to run your life, tell you what you have to believe in their f****t religion. They want bitch and moan about yours? Okay. Don’t answer to God – Answer to Evolution, you sick freaks… Bring your drag show shit around kids and you deserve to be neutered IN PUBLIC – unless your fucked up fetishes would get off on that shit.
No.
You don’t blame people who are angry. Look how fast it can happen.
You’re “right”, after all. You’re the “good guy”, fighting all those horrible people that don’t believe the same things you do. So it’s not hate raging in your heart. It’s okay when you do it.
Fuc… “oh, fun”. It really is easy to leap down a rabbit hole. Forget that even the craziest one “of them” is just as much a child of God as you are.
So easy… to look into that Abyss and not care that it’s also looking back into you. The really messed up thing is that… this could easily be you. You. Yes, you.
And it absolutely would be, if it wasn’t for the Joy of the Holy Spirit within you. Your strong opinions would be prejudices. Your “ever-so-righteous-hatred” would be bigotry at your fellow children of God.
And you’d be okay with it. All of it. And far worse. Far, far worse. Believing you yourself were the true righteous one – desiring to smite all “those people” (whoever they were), believing the ends justified the means.
Seriously – start at the top. A minor disagreement about a navy naming convention 100 years ago… take it, add half a gallon of ADD, a pint of self-righteousness, and a few shots (no communist metric bullshit) of Admiral Nelson and you’re no different than those you claim are destroying the country by forcing their views upon it.
Oh, but you’re the good guy when you do it. 🙄
Lolz…
It really is easy to let yourself be consumed by anger. Let it build. Churn. Mutate. Eventually calcify.
Yes, Atreyu. You are vulnerable to this too. We all are. You are not special. Being strong of opinion does not equate to being strong in conviction, conscience, or purpose.
So get over yourself. And thank God for what fortitude He has given you in not letting your passions be your undoing. You may love Him, but you do not speak for Him. To make your anger His anger is to cheapen it to the point where it is meaningless.
No editing. No filter. Leave it as is. Don’t even spell check.
Please place Your arms around me, Lord. I hate this. Tightness of my heart. I can feel a glimpse of my life without You and … yeah… that guy’s a jackass. 😂
Please hear prayers unspoken tonight. Those that give me grief over that which I cannot change. Place Your arms around those whom I love and care about tonight. Forgive my trespasses. And thank You for the occasional night like this… where you show me how much I need You.
For all time, please by my mighty fortress, as exalted by Psalms 46.
It doesn’t technically begin until later this month, but wow today was just Gawjuss…
Weather is beautiful. Physically, mostly recovered. Bank account good with some extra after bills are paid and the store is getting more of a well-oiled machine each day. Given this new path, it won’t last forever and you have plenty of room to breathe for the moment.
Felt great getting out today. Felt brave and picked up some cat toys. So far, Ted is making the money spent wisely.😂
There’s a lot to be said for being able to just enjoy the little things like a perfect cloudless 67 degree day with the highlight, being picking up a new belt and sunglasses.The date-like-event fell through, but He’s in charge of that again now. It’s off your chest. Slight actual weight loss. Gonna pretend that’s why, lolz.
Happiness is a blessing. And when your heart can be filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit shining from the world that really matters, you can take the concerns of this world and table them. They don’t go away, but they don’t have to build up on you either.
It’s alright. Enjoy the respite. And be grateful for all of the simple blessings. When you actually look around, there are so many more of them than you realize… and when those rough days hit you like a freight train, you don’t see them.
It’s not like you really delve into that stuff here; this is the place to talk about things you actually have control over. So usually no politics, economic fears, culture war crap.
Just a good little place for reflection. There’s always gonna be tough stuff down the pipe though; so when things are good, just enjoy them.
For today, you can call yourself a great decision-maker…. Because Ted liked the mousy toy.😂
And who knew Electric Six nailed 80s covers? Top comment is right. It has no right to be this good… 😂
It’s fine; muscles are still aching, and probably will for a while. Lots of work to catch up on here. Store is doing really well. Just so happy at how things ended up going. Now you have some flexibility, and for at least a little while, and more productive sleep cycle.
And boy, is it calling 😂
Had Bible study tonight. John. Basic story you’ve gone over when you read it but it just was so much more alive. Glad you made it. Week is going well. Be grateful for everything. 🙂
It’s Not a Frame of Mind 