Transcend: My Plans

Today wasn’t supposed to go this way.

I woke up tired and annoyed. I started reasoning in my head, making up reasons why people just didn’t seem to appreciate me or respect my time. I knew that my thinking was stinking and I didn’t want to go there, but the harder I tried to avoid it, the harder it seemed to be to get away from it.

After I dropped off my roommate, I proceeded to run some errands. First stop: car wash. Second stop: haircut. As I’m returning to my vehicle, I see that my spare tire cover is gone. I figured that I should go back to the car wash and check there, but first I decided to go to Staples to pick up a couple of items. Found the jewel cases but no CD mailers. Then I went back to the car wash, and was able to retrieve my tire cover (*phew*). I proceeded to another Staples location to see if I could find CD mailers, but to no avail. It was just around that time that I realized that my hairdresser had not done what I had requested, even though I must have specified 2 or 3 times.

I feel like I would be better able to cope with days like this if I weren’t as tired, or if I was in a better mood, but they always seem to happen on the days I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

I realize that as long as I’m living, I can’t really avoid situations like this. I realize these are petty things, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t mean that my day was a failure.

Regardless, I feel like I could have done a better job of keeping my peace. There’s no reason to get irritated and annoyed when we have yet to arrive and we are still on our way to where we are going. The journey may not be as glamorous as the destination, but if we can’t enjoy the journey, then we may not appreciate the destination as much either.

Inspire: When You Love Someone, You Let Them Go.

Today marks a first in this relationship for me - maybe it's a second,
but if it is, I don't remember it.

Because of last minute changes, plans for today that would have seen
me out and about in the great outdoors see me instead in the not-so-
bad indoors. And the one I love is in the great outdoors. This is
the first time that we've planned to do something together and it's
fallen apart for one of us, and the other has still decided to go.

Because the relationship is strong enough to survive as a beautiful
friendship.

Because while I will miss her, I know that she's going to have a great
time. And I'd rather her have a good time with friends then spend
time with me and awkwardly abandon her responsibilities to her friends.

And because I know I'll end up with some good photos of her loving the
outdoors - and we'll be able to do more of that together in the future.

Because there's plenty of time for us to be together.

And plenty of God to hold us close when we are apart.

Inspire: Give me the instant relationship glue

This is the beginning of a new post.

And soon, it will have an end. And you can search for it, and read another one, but once this is over, it's over.

Resolution is something I constantly seek. Finish work so I go home. Finish paying off that debt. Finishing school so I can graduate. Finishing unpacking the boxes in the basement so it finally feels like home.

And I seek it in my relationships - finishing people. I'll start with someone who has a few of the right characteristics, and mold them into 100% reliable, 100% dependable, trustworthy, wise, and with a good sense of humor.

But people don't like being molded. And they're not finished. The only "finished" people I know exist on the other side of the sod. I need to be more willing to walk with incomplete people - because, just like them, that's where I am. I need to be more willing to forgive. I need to be more willing to teach and to learn.

Most of all, I need to remember that real life happens in that tension between what we were and what we are becoming. If there is no tension, it's because there is no growth. The state of being unresolved leads me to seek new ideas, new perspectives, new information. I need to make decisions slowly - leaving time for other perspectives to come in. I need to be willing to work in curing process.

Ah, enough of that - just give me the instant relationship glue... although it never seems to stick long enough for me to do anything useful.