Breaking the Streak

I love the kids so much...but I don't think I can do this much longer.

LifeGuides has always been the thing I do at St. Tom's. I just don't enjoy it any more...it feels like work; it has become work. I don't enjoy working with the other team members...I don't feel like they care about the program as much as I do, and it hurts. Meetings drag on for hours...and little to nothing is accomplished.

The man in charge keeps saying he wants to restructure the meeting so it runs more efficiently, but we are a third of the way through the semester with no change. One of the other leaders pays no attention to detail, and thus we loose credibility with the parents with every correspondence. Other leaders don't show up to half the stuff.

It is just so frustrating, I don't know if I can take it much more...I am seriously considering quitting but can't bring myself to do it mid-semester. I also don't want to give up the youth I work with. I want to stay in youth ministry...but I can't do it with the group I work with.

Lord Help Me!

The Man I want to be...

I was posed the question tonight...what kind of man do you want to be. Thank God it was a rhetorical question...I didn't have an answer. What kind do I want to be? I've never really thought about it before...I guess you don't just become a man...you have to work for it. Laziness gets you nowhere.

I want to be honest, caring, handy, goofy, loving, open. I want to make enough to get by...but a few perks would be nice. I want to be able to enjoy my hobbies...and share them with others. I want to be God-fearing yet God-centered. I want to be able to guide others toward a life following Jesus Christ. I want to be hard-working, energetic, kind.

I am succeeding in some areas, but failing in others. Lord, help me to be the man I want to be...but first help me to be the man You want me to be.

Am I trapped or stubborn?

Am I afraid to grow up? I feel like I am being left behind. My friends have all gotten married or moved on. I am still at college. I want a relationship so bad, but I am cutoff from any chance of one. I am surrounded by beautiful, single, Catholic women...and I can't do anything about it.

Our culture puts marriage and relationships at the center of everything. It is flashed everywhere...it's hard to avoid them. Every time I see them I want a relationship even more.

Am I truly happy where I am...or am I just putting on a mask to pretend. Am I trapped, or just afraid of taking a leap. This probably isn't healthy. I put on a happy face when I go to work...but spend the evening sitting in front of my TV trying to figure out who I am, where I am going, and self-loathing. I need out. I can't take it anymore. I just want to live a normal life. I want to move forward but I don't want to make the effort. I make excuses for why it is impossible for me to move forward. I need someone to talk to, who will actually care enough to make me answer the tough questions and think about my life on a deeper level.

Retreat...

Retreat (spiritual), a religious or spiritual term for time taken to reflect or meditate;
Retreat (military), a withdrawal of military forces

So this weekend I tried my hardest to get out of town by 5pm for two nights of camping, in the woods away from civilization...let's just say I am still working on perfecting that art. I ended up leaving around 5:30-5:45...so not that bad. On the way down I decided to shut off my phone so I would be disconnected from the outside world.

I got down to Shades State Park and set up camp, pitched my tent...a new one I won in a silent auction, I wanted to try it out...and made supper on a little stove I made from pop cans. By this time it was approaching sunset. I grabbed my backpack and made my way down one of the trails for a bit...and just sat there on a rock listening to the stream trickle below...in the approaching darkness. After about 20 mins I couldn't handle the silence anymore and figured it was time to head back to camp before it got too dark.

I attempted a fire so that I could read outside before bed...didn't think ahead and really didn't have the firewood to do it. So I turned in and read a short section by lantern light. Ironically the place in the book ("Wild at Heart") I was at, was entitled "Healing the Wound". After finishing the section...about 5 pages...I decided that was it for the night and tried to fall asleep. It took a while but I finally got comfortable and fell asleep...and actually got a good night's rest.

The next day I woke up...brewed a cup of coffee, and packed up to head out on the trails for the day. I got about an 1/8 of a mile down the trail and I stepped on a root and twisted my ankle. I sat dazed for a bit...but eventually got up to start walking on it. It was sore for the rest of the day but I was able to walk on it fine. I spent the day hiking the trails thinking about life, vocation, youth group...everything that has been weighing down on me the last few weeks. I am not sure that I really got any clarity out of hiking...but I know this...two things kept coming to mind:

       Am I retreating or running away?
       If I love camping and hiking so much, why am I not enjoying this?

I hiked two of the most rugged trails at Shades...rock hopping in both to make my way up the stream bead. It was beautiful!! Simply Amazing...but that feeling only lasted for a short while. Not having someone to turn to and say, "Look at that neat rock formation." or "How did this come to be?", kind of burst the bubble on exciting. They are just rock formations...that I will probably soon forget...not really memories.

I sat down to eat lunch around noon...wheat thins and a summer sausage. I brought a radio with me because I wanted to check in from time to time with the Purdue game to see how we were doing...just after kickoff we had scored a touchdown return, the game was off to a good start so I headed down another trail. As I walked out to the Nature Preserve it hit me harder and harder, it sucked not having someone there with me to share this all with. Why can't I be one of the couples that I passed on the trail. How awesome would it be to camp, spend the day hiking and then return strike up a campfire...cook dinner and just enjoy each other's company in God's land.

My thoughts started to drift to why I had come out to the woods in the first place. Arguably it was a long week...only four days...but I had to make up for lost work time on Monday. I felt the need to get a way...but was I running away from it all? I kind of tried to get out of doing a few things on Friday so that I would be able to leave by 5pm. I felt selfish...I mean that was kind of the point of the weekend...but was I doing it for the wrong reasons? We are called to be humble and self-sacrificing, how was I doing this by leaving on the weekend of a kick-off retreat for the freshmen, a P&W concert, helping out with Germanfest tear-down. How was me leaving and avoiding all of this helping in any way the greater whole?

I started to count down the hours. I didn't want to be camping anymore. I started weighing my options...how many hours till I could be packed and headed back to Lafayette? But I already paid for a second night? Was it worth it? What would I do when I got home? I tried to talk myself out of it, and then to talk myself into leaving early...finally deciding to do so. I had seen what I wanted of the park...I've been recently, and covered ground this weekend that I had not previously been to. I had no reason to stay out in the woods. What I had meant as a weekend of relaxation and re-centering my prayer life had become an internal conflict with myself on how to get out of there as fast as possible. Why had I even come, why did I make such a big deal about getting out of town? I made it back to camp and packed everything up just in-time to catch the last minute of the Purdue game. We won by six beating an opponent that had been slaughtered the week before by our arch-rival IU. I got in the car and headed back to Lafayette.

After I got back I cleaned up and laid down for a bit because I felt a headache coming on. I took a few aspirin and then took about an hour nap. I woke up and was half tempted to roll over and go back to sleep. I got myself out of bed and headed out to Germanfest to have a brat and try the People's Brew Co. specialty beer Oktoberfest...brewed specifically for the Germanfest. I thoroughly enjoyed Germanfest...caught up with some people I hadn't seen in a while and ended up helping to tear down at the end of the night...which included a free beer.

So where am I? I have no clue. In some ways I feel like I answered a few questions this weekend...in other ways...I feel like I am using some of it as a good excuse to stop discerning. My faith life has always been something that I did on my own...no one to really sit down and talk about it with, that just isn't how my family works. So it scares me to turn to someone else for help with my faith life. "I can do this on my own, I don't need someone else to judge me and tell me I am doing it wrong". How long can I keep that attitude before it blows up in my face...has it already blown? How do I open that conversation line up again?

I am not sure anymore what I hoped to get out of the weekend...but I'm not certain I achieved my goal. I shouldn't expect a one weekend fix...go out into the woods and everything will be better, but I was hoping for more of a sense of peace. I am right where I started if not a little more lost than before. I am not sure where to go from here...

Fear and Loneliness...

I have been putting this off...almost every day for a week I have been thinking about writing a post. I use this blog to kind of de-stress and let everything off my chest. Well, I have waited long enough.

I feel so alone, so lost. I can't say I have a direction for my life. I don't even know what I want. Some days I feel like it would be nice to have a significant other...someone I could talk to and let it all out to, I am not talking venting or letting off steam to co-workers. Someone I can truly open my soul to...tell the things I keep tucked away inside.

But other days I stop myself...I want a wife...but am I willing to give up the freedom that single-hood allows. There is a lot of time and effort that needs to go into a relationship...am I willing to do that. In some ways this is why my last real relationship failed. I am not a talk on the phone every night type of person, I like to talk face to face...when that isn't possible, I rarely make the effort. I've tried to get better at it...made attempts. But in the end I am pushing away some of my closest friends because I don't make that effort. I am balancing on a very thin beam. I talk with friends occasionally...but probably not enough anymore to constitute a true friendship.

Do I really have friends...or just acquaintances? If they are all just acquaintances...it isn't their fault, or for lack of trying. I have shut others out...trying to deal with me by myself. I think blaming my ex was a coping mechanism...I'm not saying I wasn't at fault for the break-up, I think we both had our issues. But I think it really scarred me, maybe even changed me. Good came from it...I think? I firmly believe that I did a lot of discerning in that first year...but then it went stale. I tell myself I am discerning...really I think I am just trying to fight through life and find my place in it...discerning, but recklessly...not in the way one should go about it. But with the good, also came the parts that screwed me up...that changed me...

At the point in my life where I thought I had everything figured out and planned out...dating a girl for three years, graduating, ready to start thinking about how I would propose...I fell off the bridge. All of a sudden I was a college graduate applying to McDonald's, no hopes of a job...single...alone and lost.

So where do I go from here? I don't know...if I did...I probably wouldn't be writing this post. I have no idea what to do, or who to reach out to. I am alone in this with a heavy fog lying in front of me. I am scared...

I Love My Little Sister!!!

My little sister is freaking awesome!!! She has a very real personality, doesn't take crap, enjoys the little things, and exudes a beautiful faith life. Why the sudden lauding of my sister on my blog...? This...

July 23, 2010 8:51pm

Hey. Mom was freaking out about getting the moving truck and not "knowing everything" that is going on next week so I told her that you had gotten the job in west laf. She wasn't too happy about it saying that "oh he owes me money and was supposed to come home so he could work it off. I had things for him to do around the house too." In other words she is pissed. She doesn't consider it a job. I was like well at least Andy would be working 40 hrs a week. It's a job and he'd be working more than you. She was like but I could make more that him in a day than what he does in a week. I was like well duh you've been working longer you should be able to do that. She's more or less pissed that you are staying in laf and saying "he never intended on coming back to this area."

Dad's still thinks all you'll be doing is "mowing the lawn." I tried to explain to him that you were doing other things and that a person couldn't mow the lawn every day of the week. They're basically just mad that you won't be subbing. Hopefully you were able to do some sort of deal with them about being able to at least once a week.

Mom's basically like "I'm cutting him off for good then." and basically told us to stop talking about you that as far as she was concerned you're not doing what you should with your life. Honestly it's all bull shit what they say. They need to understand that you have been trying to get jobs and that your type of job just isn't hiring right now. Subbing isn't a guaranteed position every day of the week and you'd basically be making the same amount of money you are at your guaranteed job. You're doing what you can do right now and mostly mom needs to understand that. She thinks that you don't want to sever your ties with School and that's why you're not moving. Which again is bull shit. Sure you may still want to be in the area but right now that is where you have a job.

She also thinks she deserves to know what Kim and you broke up. Which again is none of her business. If you wanted to tell us you would. Honestly whatever happened was between you two and it's not any of our business as to why that happened.

So I didn't mean to make this all ranting. Congratulations on getting the job and hope that you do find something better in the future, but for right now this is what you have been given and at least it's an opportunity that some people don't have. I'll be happy to see you when I get down to Purdue and hope that maybe you'll be able to come to the Band concert thing at the end of the week like you came to last year. It's on sat I believe or lateish Fri night. I'll let you know for sure later.

And that my friends is why everybody wishes their sister was as awesome as mine! My little sister stands up for me...and I'm the big brother. I ran across this tonight, It was written almost three years ago. I think I have swayed my dad...but my mom is another story. I have never been able to please her in anything I have ever done. It hurts...I want to live my life the way I feel I am called to live it, but she sucks the fun out of it and complains the entire way through. I am thankful for my little sister. We don't always see eye to eye on everything, we fight...siblings do that. But at the end of the day, I know that either of us would bend over backwards to help the other. Growing up when people heard twins in our family they often assumed sis and I were the twins. In many ways that makes sense now. Our personalities are similar and we share a lot of the same interests.

Anyway, the main point of this is that I came across this post tonight and it made me realize how privileged I am to have my little sister...and although she may have been a pain growing up (as was her job as a little sister) I will always treasure the experiences we have had over the years, and will continue to have!!!

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same You wanna be where everybody knows Your name.

Vacation often means heading off to somewhere warm and exotic. Usually it doesn't land you in the middle of a forest, in pouring rain, surrounding by a busy schedule that leaves you exhausted at the end of the day.

Well it does for me, and I wouldn't have traded a second of it. Yeah there were times during the week that it would have been nice to be somewhere cushy and relaxing, but it wouldn't have taken my mind off of my real life job. Camp allowed me to remove myself from the outside world and focus on the moment.

The best part is that it felt as if I had never left. Within a half hour of pulling into camp I felt like I had been there last week and was staying the rest of the summer. Everyone knew who I was and started joking with me as they did with everyone else on staff. One of the things that hit me hard though was Tuesday afternoon. I saw one of my mom's friends at camp and he pulled me aside to tell me that I was the reason that his son was on staff this year. This was the same scout who was sleeping in the bunk above me all week.

I ended up working split between three areas: Waterfront, Trading Post, and pulling trap up at the Rifle Range...