Two Week Notice and Two Other Things

I'm blogging to remind myself that life is moving rather fast. I haven't quite caught up and the more time I waste settling to another match of settlers with strangers or participate in idle chats, that these days of challenge will slip by unnoticed.

The irony is the name of this blog "bragging rights: cause this life is required to be awesome" is the reason why I am in such a state of indeterminable mess. Seeking to have not just an "okay" life but a freaking awesome life has been such an arduous journey. I'm only 26 and I'm already tired and defeated. The questions have finally started seeping in: maybe "okay" is enough, the status quo is safer then the unknown and worst yet, maybe I'm just being selfish. Putting my family and finance in jeopardy seems like the last thing that I would have ever done, but I can not control z this past week. Even though I see the first fruits of my decision already, I can not see a happy ending and I'm already thinking about playing it safe. I don't even have plan I have confidence in.

But I know now this is the time for prayer and Hope: the two things I have forgotten about but should have been the only thing I needed to pack for this next chapter in my life, scratch that, all my life. I'm not sure if the decision I made was good or right but damn, I already made it and I have to stick to it. The desire to be counter cultural, live a new way, being a servant, having a burning passion each and every day, now that is how I define freaking awesome. Even as I type all those things out, it's been so tiring to seek now even more scary to actually take the steps. But to be completely honest, I haven't been taking those steps in prayer and Hope.

I can only wait and see ...

...that maybe with prayer and Hope, awesome won't be so tiring. 

Mine

You took me by surprise

When you said "I’ll never leave you alone"

You said "I remember how we felt sitting by the water

And every time I look at you, it’s like the first time

I feel in love with a careless man’s careful daughter

She is the best thing, that’s ever been mine.

Hold on make it last

Hold on never look back

You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter

You are the best thing that’s ever been mine

Engaged July 15th, 2011

Nightmares

Why is it so hard to sleep these days.

This new job has required more mental energy and strength then I have spent in years. I shiver just to think that tomorrow I will be battling it out again. Remain a positive light, don't let the work get to you and act like you give a damn. And all that it will take out of me, yet I still won't fall prey to the comfort of my covers. I sit here, abiding my time wastefully. Facebook, Twitter, Words, email.... waiting. I would like to say I am like a watchmen waiting anxiously and faithfully but I do not know what I am waiting for these days. My scattered hope for the things to come remain helplessly abandoned by me. I only dare to pick it up when I have enough courage.

And yet, time still ticks on as my keyboard clacks. I am not being productive .

I remember a friend in college once said, he sleeps late because he wants more out of his day. So he thinks if he stays up more will happen. But I am not sure if that is the case for me. Maybe I am beating myself up because when I lay down tonight, I will have to come to the conclusion that today, I do not feel like I have come one step closer to my big dreams. That they still remain far from my reach. Sometimes I fear, if I get closer to them, will they be as shiny as I had imagined?

So honestly, at 12:26am on this Thursday night, what are my dreams? The dream that has been hushed silent due to years of being in the same financial state? My dream is to be a middle school teacher. I vow to teach out of love and not routine. To be available instead of frustrated. To teach them math but to also give them the courage to live outside the lines so maybe... one day they too will write a blog post like this one.

Maybe I am naive because, honestly, I dream to make this world a better place.

Perhaps, tomorrow.

Lights Out

[As I am typing this I am listening to Yiruma and Jeff Bjorck, for those of you that know him.. it might explain the mood of this post. The weather certainly does not contribute any sort of natural sas or spunk I may have had in previous posts.]

I have a cell phone. I have a wallet. Got a new debit card but I am waiting for more indispensable cards to come in the mail. Beans, snail mail has never felt quite this, well, snail-ish. I have somehow done all my Christmas shopping and wrapping via Amazon Prime but have not gotten a California's Driver's license yet. Funny huh?

I learned a lot by not having a cell phone but to preface I cheated. I used Google voice to text and used my mom cell's phone quite a bit, so I did not ever go completely Amish and looking back I wish I had the right amount of balls to try such a venture in 2010 or whatever. I am a little shocked at how easy it was to revert back to the dependency of the mobile device and plastic for money but perhaps one week is not enough time to break a habit. It doesn't help that I did not have a clear goal in mind. Alas, all these lessons learned.

There's only one lesson or revelation I would like to share with the world that I found pretty interesting.

I believe all this technology just leads to us being more in control, almost like we are trying to level the playing field with God. I know that's a pretty extreme statement. But, I'm going to leave it at that. Partially because it's too cold to type but also because it's a highly controversial statement. But think about the direction of things we are trying to improve: "real time", "world at your fingertips", "stay connected" and etc. With cell phones, internet and computers, we are able to "do" instead of giving room to "hope" or "trust" that things will work out.

Perhaps I will extrapolate more tomorrow when I'm in a heated room, but that is all I am leaving the world with tonight.

Snatched!

It is always a funny revelation how closely we are all tied to one another. Everyone has this sense of individual security. We have our plans for the week, month and year. Today I thought around this time I would be at Planet Granite winding down from my first run in two weeks or bouldering the new V1 routes I have not touched. By 7pm I would be hitting the showers and getting ready to enjoy dinner with a couple of darling friends. I even gave myself options because we are all about the freedom of choice. But instead, I am oddly typing on Microsoft this blog entry in my car in a parking lot. This is a pretty ultimate low. Thankfully I am parked in a corner so there are no witnesses.

By my dear beans, I hope that this won’t be a rant because those blogs are never really that fun to read. On Sunday my family had to deal with the consequences of buyer’s remorse and ended back at the Great Mall.  Due to my uncle’s plans not aligning with ours we had a hour to kill at this Great Mall. My mom went into one of those shops that my little brother and I dreaded. (think Tupperware) We were chillin on the bench outside. I even remember thinking, this is nice just goofing off with my brother talking and laughing about nothing of any sort of significance. When my mom returns we finally decide to take off to our destination earlier than planned because the Great Mall is really not that great.

When we are getting up to leave I realize my purse is no longer next to me. (For those skeptics, yes I’m sure the purse was with me when I was on the bench because I remember texting while waiting for Mom.)  I kept my cool and used my mom’s phone and put a hold on my mobile account, bank card and credit card. Everything else I considered lost. Gift cards, 10 day gym pass, rewards card and etc. Crap, I just realized my insurance cards are in there! Anyways,  I even refused my mom’s offer to go home instead of eating dinner with my relatives. I told my family “it is what it is, life most go on”.  Today I went to the DMV to apply for a duplicate license and filed a police report. Additionally, there were a lot of residual thoughts today.

Because someone decided to take an unsuspecting strangers’ purse, my seemingly safe world has been cracked. Last night, I went a bit frantic as I read what people can potentially do with your license. I was never very concerned with identity theft but tomorrow I am going to sign up for Identity Theft Protection for a month . Realistically, I will probably have to use a stupid phone* for 5 months. This really ticked me off for 3 hours. And I hate it when I’m angry because anger seldom solves problems. I just kept thinking:  I have no options. I am stuck. Things that were part of my everyday, are now gone. It is not just the contents that were in my purse but pieces of my so-called-freedom.  And I’m not mad at whoever took my purse. I’m just astonished at how quickly the seams of daily life can easily be loosened and become something I have to fight for. The mean lady at the DMV, the insensitive banker who could not give me my temporary bank card and the busy fob AT&T rep that said I can only get a SIM card if I paid with my debit card are all shards of time I did not plan for, including this entry.

Now I have reached the end of my anger and I feel oh-so-very defeated. But so is life. And as quickly as my purse was taken away so will these emotions pass and maybe sooner than later I will be back to believing in the security of my plans and choices. But it is fun to hope that I can learn a great deal more. So if you have followed this long blog entry thus far: I am going to go without a credit card and cell phone for a week and will diligently report back my day to day thoughts. 

See ya'll in a week! 

Balls.

I know I said I would write about the marathon, but I realized I never write what I should write. Maybe I'll write about it next week. Due to recent events and conversations I've been tangling the idea of intimacy around my fingers and synapses. Because of the taboo of this topic this post is probably not for the immature hearted.

It's really easy to strip someone of their clothes. You have hormones, physical tension and pleasure nerves all working on your side. Maybe it takes people longer then others or longer then they would like. But if both are semi-attracted to each other and have that longing,  I'm sure with some tick for tack it'll happen. And what gratification that must be to have the fleshes' fire quenched. It's the trickiest drug out there because it involves partaking with at least one other soul. Perhaps that adds on to the mysticism of sex (in case I wasn't making myself clear).

So that's physical intimacy. Undeniably pleasurable for most and lets face it if we have our guard down we're all pretty easy.

On the flip side, stripping someone of their thoughts is not so easy, seemingly impossible. You have years of mental walls, insecurity and sneaky lies working not on your side. Maybe we don't even want to go there or we find something that we don't like. But think about that one person you really love (brother, mother, lover, friend), they probably have some self- taught loathing mechanism working against the grain of their being. Rarely revealed because who signs up to be Debbie Downers lover, friend of family? But most people carry beliefs their whole lives that are not true. I was a carrier myself and it was not benign. The scary thing is it infects us all without being aware of it. Treatment is hard. It involves real intimacy. This intimacy is not to be done one on one. This intimacy involves your world. Past, present and future. Needless to say, it's not easy. It really comes down to if you really want to be known by yourself and others. If you really want to be stripped.

So that's real intimacy. Unpopular opinion for most but lets face it, people with no balls take the easy route.

Indefinitely

This blog has been harder to maintain then I thought, I do have several posts pending just have not really had the time to smooth out the edges. I've been training for a half marathon, but this post is not about that. (Even though the half is in less then 24 hours, I will probably post about that some time next week) This post is about something even greater that took longer and a lot more energy to train for: a relationship.

About a year ago, I began to try to press my body to run a bit more than before. I found out pretty quickly that I run longer when someone was on the treadmill next to me. Perhaps I am a tad competitive but in my own strange way I thought I need to run as long as the person next to me.  Sometimes this would all blow over. They would never get off and I would give up after almost rolling off the treadmill or they would get off just as I was getting warmed up and I would be left to run alone. (These are all complete strangers by the way.) One day I was running next to someone who was going about my pace and we were both doing so well. I broke out of my wall of 3 miles and was feeling great! It just so happened that this day was around Valentines Day, sad to admit, but I was thinking about the mystery of dating. Somewhere between mile three and mile four I realized that life would be pretty awesome without having a "man". I can live epically married or not. I still have not decided if these thoughts are from my own self diluted sense of pride or because I know my creator loves me, maybe an accumulation.

As I was running I made a very important vow. I would not partner with someone who could not keep pace with me, were not going the same direction and did not love to run. I mean this all figuratively, of course. The last bit meaning the man would not be okay with staying still or walking leisurely through life. He has to be on fire, running, because the desire to live presently demands more than just surviving. I thought that this was a tall order and probably impossible but I was very determined not to settle. I would have grace but I would not compromise my point of interest/destination or who I am.

Three months ago (give or take a day) once again I was proven wrong. That in Him all things are possible. It just took me a few gentle loving nudges and some pushes from great people to realize there is someone who does have all of that going on and so much more. It's just toppings that we happened to be great friends.

And to answer the odd question that is awkwardly but sometimes asked: Yes, we are happy, indefinitely. 

Happy Three Months.