The Letter

I had this idea a few years ago and then forgot about it.  The other day it came to mind again in just the right setting with just the right words.  This is by no means the only way this can be done and i took the idea from a couple of books that by David Gregory.  For those of you who know who that is, then you already know what this is about.  For those who don't, I hope you enjoy anyway and that you come away from reading this with a different feeling in your heart.

The Letter

Hello,

This is just me checking up on you, seeing how things are going.  I haven't heard from you in a while now.  I miss your talks.  We used to talk a lot, you and me.  Well, I guess it was mostly you talking and me listening but I want you to know that I was listening.  I imagine you're all grown up now.  By my count, you should be in college with your nose in the books.  I don't know if I ever told you but I never went to college.  I was always pretty good with my hands so I went into carpentry.  I probably could have been a counselor or a teacher.  I always loved kids.  Don't let my not going to college give you any ideas though.  I remember how determined you were when you were little and with an attitude like yours, you will go far!

I'm going to go now, I have a building project I'm working on that I'm pretty sure you're going to like.  I'll show you when I'm done.  Before I go, I just want you to know that I'm still here.  Anytime that you feel like going to for a walk or talking for a bit, just let me know.  I will always be here for you, even if it doesn't seem like I am.  I hope to hear from you soon!

JC

June, July...October?

Once again, time has eluded me.  One moment I'm swimming in Lake Antoine on a cool summers day and then next I'm getting ready for mid-terms?!?  I have not one, not two, but three art classes this semester... and then choir.  One of them is a hot cold class if you will.  I'm either doing great on an assigment or terrible.  (This teacher doesn't give A's unless it's really something, so a "B" means  you worked hard good and faithful student.  Anything else is "a start."  The next classes is all about participation.  Do the assignment according to the parameters of what we are supposed to do and you get an "A."  Hmmm.  So in the first class, you have to try to get anything better than a "C" and in the second, you have to try to get anything less than an "A"...... Ahhh College.  The third class, I am retaking.  Not even going to go there.  Show Choir is a challenge.  Choreography, lyrics, notes, stressed people the closer we get to performance day, and enough crazy to drive an elephant  up the side of the Burj Dubai.

But Midterms?  Already?  And into my THIRD year of college.  This means that a number of the friends that I made during my freshman year are either gone or are getting ready to go.   And the ones that ARE still here, I hardly see.  Of course there are some of my old comrades a grade or two behind me in high school that are now attending Northern.  I can get in touch with them. But everything and everyone is moving so fast.  I've been thinking about my four years in high school a lot lately for some reason.  Maybe it's because the everything seems to be going by so fast that my brain is trying to hold onto older memories in hopes of remembering something because it's giving up on trying to remember the present.  I don't really know, I'm just rambling at this point.  I'm tired, it's 3:45...in the morning.  I got off of work at 3:00.  I'm now sitting at the kitchen table in my apartment.  Yes, I have an apartment, that's a new development, i'll have to come back to that one at a later date.  Anyways I'm sitting at the kitchen table.  Polishing off the smoked cheddar while thinking of some of those old times.  The cheese is not sitting well which may be due to the fact that the "sell by date" was a week ago.  No matter. 

Good ol' times, right.  

Marching band.  Oh how I hated shivering on the sidelines at the homegames with my fingers just short of being frozen to the keys of my saxophone.  It may have only been 40-50 degrees at it's coldest but with the uniforms we had, we might as well have been wearing tangtops and short shorts.  I should take this time to clarify that we were wearing fill length uniforms that look warm enough but instead of keeping us warm, it amplifed the weather by 100%.  As was in the summer as well.  Same exact uniform.  If it was 75-85 degrees in the air, then it was 85-105 in our uniforms.  Many more memories...falling asleep.  I have countless memories of being in drama club but one that seems to stick especially well is this one time when our drama coach told me to take my pills.  This would seem innocent enough except for the fact that I don't take pills and she knows it.  All in good fun.  So many good memories.  Choir, jazz band at 7:00 in the morning,  passing notes inbetween class; and lunch.  I could write a book about all the stories I have from lunch.  For some reason, there was a bat in the cafeteria one day.  It was flying around, doin it's thing.  People were ducking, covering their hair, the usual antics that accompany a bat scare.  One friend of mine felt compelled to catch the thing and so at just the right moment, as it was flying by, he sprung out his arm (sprung is the only word that accurately describes it) and caught the creature by It's feet...My friend was a ninja, or if not then he might as well have been.

They all seem like yesterday...

My third year of college...THIRD year...

Well anyways i'm going to go to bed...and wake up in 2012

Friends

Where has the time gone? This summer flew by. Today is the sixteenth. I move back to school on the twentieth. I have three new roommates; a new adventure that will be fun to experience. One of the other three, I know from high school. He has roomed with one of the other two in the past. The other two have roomed together and I was their house mate in the dorms. Needless to say, we all know each other already. We have gotten pretty close and although we may have our differences, I think, God willing, that we are going to get along just fine.

It's amazing, thinking back to the early years of school, how many friends I never thought I'd make. I never thought I would fit in even though that is the very thing that I longed to do. It is ironic how now, after being blessed with plenty of friends, there are friendships that I'm trying to make (or rekindle) that I may never get to see. There have been some that have stopped talking to me after some confrontation that may have very well been my fault. Others have branched into a direction in life that has taken them away from contact. And then there are those who, no matter where they are, I've just simply lost touch with.

There were and are so many friends that, no matter how sure I was that I was going to be able to get together with, I just wasn't able to. After some more thought though, was it really because I "wasn't able to" or rather because I didn't take the initiative to call? I hung out with quite a few friends this summer but the ones I saw the most, I see at school all the time. In contrast, I barely saw the friends that I rarely see. It makes me think where my priorities really are and what I've got my goal meter set at as far as visiting with people and getting things accomplished. I mean sure I had work this summer but there was ample opportunity to go out and do things. For tonight, I think I will chalk it up to being lazy, but at the same time I know there's more to it than that. Unfortunately, the "more" part isn't exactly an easy answer to find. I know in the end, God is there and I can bring anything to him.

For now,

Your's In Writing

College: The Two Year Mark

Well, I'm back in the writing saddle again; clicking away at the keys. Hopefully for a while this time. I do have work this summer, trying to pay for college and all, so we'll see how frequently I am drawn to the keyboards calling of my name. Too many times, though, I've seen something that I wanted to write about, that, well, I obviously didn't. As a writer, it's important to write an idea down as soon as you can, or the story behind whatever you see may be gone forever.

I can't believe I'm done with two years of college already. It still seems like just a week ago that I was walking across the gym floor, donned with cap and gown, to shake the Superintendent's hand and receive my diploma. That was May 2007! Two years! A lot has has happened in that time. I've completed fifty-one college credits, I got a job at school, I've met and made friends with most of approximately two-hundred people at school, and, as of today, I've been going out with an amazing girl for about three and a half months.

Over all, I had a bit of a rough semester however I seem to have made it out while remaining relatively unscathed. And, of course, I learned a few lessons along the way. Some new, some old. Actually, they were mostly old lessons that just needed relearning: Patience is a virtue, good things come to those who wait, opposites attract, people as a whole are the same but each individual person is different, and sometimes when you are looking for something, the reason you can't find it is because it's right under you nose, to name a few. Oh, and another one that i feel is worth mentioning: Relationships, whether they be family, friend, or other, are much more important than the petty obstacles that come between them, like a falling out or a misunderstanding. People need to be cared about by other people. Okay, so maybe some people can get by without social interaction for a while, but I think that deep down, everyone needs to be needed. Everyone needs somebody to care about them. When you've built up a relationship with someone, connected with them in some way, they become a part of you. Emotionally, psychologically, everyone that you have a connection with, makes up who you are. And the stronger the relationship, and the deeper the connection, the more it hurts when something happens to damage that connection. It's feels like part of you is lost. That's because they were a part of you.

One more lesson: Don't take people for granted. They don't always stick around like you think they will. Instead, take advantage of the time that you have together. Not everyone is always going to be there. I have experienced this many times over these two years. Some people, like a wonderful great aunt and a co-worker who was also a friend, have died and others, more family and friends, have moved away; all people that I always thought would be around much, much longer. Cherish all friendships because you never know when that person won't be there anymore. Every person that we come in contact with, no matter how small the connection, has an effect on us whether we realize it or not. I look forward to seeing where college, and ultimately life, has yet to bring me and to seeing what God has in store for me along the way. I will cherish every moment that I'm in and each person that crosses my path. I challenge you to do the same.

Your's In Writing

A Toast to the New Year!

The year of 2008 has come and gone, and all too fast I might add. It has been a year of adventure, of failure, of success, of joy, of sorrow...we look back on this year, on the memories it has given us, the lessons it has taught us, the wonders of life it has shown us...and we find that we have grown, learned from our mistakes, from those failures and from the sorrow.

I've come along way from starting out at college a year and a half ago. Not to say that I don't have a long way to go still, but a lot of lessons have come my way...

One of these is that you can't dwell on the big things all the time. I've heard people say we "need to look at the big picture." Well, that's what I've been doing for a while now and it's slowed me up. Those big goals that I want to accomplish in the future have taken my focus away from what is happening right now in my life. I had totally lost the desire to stop and smell the roses, listen to the rain fall, or watch the stars on a clear night. My Big Goals where all that I was thinking about.

Now don't get me wrong...big goals are very, very important. They drive us to great heights and help us to accomplish awesome feats that we never would have thought ourselves capable of if we didn't have big goals in the first place. But the key to success is to have a healthy balance of focus on both and that is very much what I didn't have. My eyes were on the big prize rather than the road to get me there.

God has also shown me, and is still showing me, that the greater the fall is, the greater the healing is. We can never learn enough of this lesson. We may never fully understand why the hurt comes...we just know that it does.

This is a new year. New experiences. New opportunities. New Lessons. I don't know what is to come in the year of 2009 but I do know that if we keep a healthy balance of dreaming of the big things and focusing on the small things we will accomplish great things.

Your's In Writing