BreakEven

All my life has been spent in this haze. I have never had a true definition of self because I either didn’t want to admit who I was, or others didn’t perceive me as who I was. Yes, there was defining moment where I think “I’ve got it right”, congratulations, but then something irrevocable and absolutely disappointing happens and my beliefs about self falter. No, never my belief in God, for he is magnificent.
I don’t understand until things are in hindsight, but how many things can you view in hindsight before you realize things are never working out as you hoped, oh hoped, they would.
I had that moment last night, midnight. I had been skeptical about love since I became the girl that correlated with the dreaded, yet amazing title: ‘friend’. But I grew up and now friendship has stuck and became the official title, instead of what most people like to embark upon the title: relationship. I want the pitter patter heart that occurs when I am with the opposite sex, to stop always searching and find that best friend. My feelings have abounded for several different guys in my life time, though only a short few, for I regulate who I let in, and why. I never have a shallow desire; dreadfully my feelings are always deep rooted, which can be viewed as a blessing and curse. All these potentials were different, extremely, which makes defining the “right” type a difficult, yet adventurous task. On the pitiful side obviously I have never found the right type, because they simply have never stuck.
Through time I always hope I am getting warmer, like that childhood game you play, almost to annoy the other person playing for your own enjoyment you make them feel like idiot while following your voice, and it’s especially fun when you get to yell ‘cold!’. The word ‘cold’ has been shouted in my ear probably a billion times in my teenage slash young adulthood when it involves making decisions, I don’t know if I have ever been ‘hot’.
My hope for ‘hot’ has taken its stabs throughout the years, especially when I heard it whispered, but never shouted. I had a best friend in high school. I have liked several boys, but to say I have loved, I am sure there is but one. This one whisper of ‘hot’ came in my high school days when I decided my future on a volleyball road trip. My best friend was behind me and all I remember thinking that night was my plan to be in love forever with that friend as different as he was from me. In that three hour trip I gave up my dreams of travelling and going to school, I made a sacrifice to stay in that small town, simply because I loved the boy in it. I was never asked to, probably why ‘hot’ was only whispered.
Even though I do not pertain the same kind of love for him as I did in high school I still can identify that loving him was no accidental occurrence.
Last night I stayed up late talking to one of my new friends about love and life, sounds pretty typical, but it was anything but typical. One of the questions that dominated my thoughts was this: How much love does one need to possess to fall in love, or be in a relationship with, if they don’t have the same passion in life as you do?
I used to feel love was infallible. Opposite interest? Love would conquer all. That is stupidly naïve, but perhaps I am just extra cynical today. … I listened to the ideals of this friend, pretty much the exact opposite of mine. Then the words “see, I could like you..” came out of his mouth. Like as pertaining to ‘warm’? Those words startled me because here I was in the middle of an epiphany about how love may not conquer opposite dreams, or scratch that not only dreams but ones thoughts. Our ideals are what make us, how could we possible have the same approach to life and create ‘hot’ if everything is completely off kilter? Forget the magical romance movies.
I had never been so particular about love until I meet a random stranger who had the biggest, yet indefinable, passion I had in life. Once again I am using the word passion, when I mean objectives to life. It was this connection, and suddenly I thought about love in a whole new way, perhaps ‘hot’ was going to be with someone with the same passion and objectives. Are our ‘soul mates’, and I define that in the manner as someone like ourselves, the ones we are supposed to fall in love with, or just a reminder that you are not alone in the world?
My best friend, from the small town, and I were once having a conversation about life. I got frustrated and said: “I guess I am always going to think different than you!” I meant for it to be a stab at his intellectualism, like I was the upper hand. But instead of getting angry and defending himself he simply said a line that left me cold.
“And Jodi, that is the only reason we aren’t together.” Cause when a heart break, no, it don’t breakeven.

This letter to you.

Dear Jackie.
I was going to write this by hand, there is something special about reading a letter that is hand written. But my words don’t come out quite as poetic, and inspired.
I also wanted to get this letter to you before I left Redeemer, but, I was always with you, so I just let my thoughts float around in my mind for the last few days. And there was definitely a number of thoughts. Ones I don’t want to say, cause I fear they will just confuse you, or really pertain to no helpful purpose. I want this letter to be up building, but also truthful. There was things I didn’t want to think at Redeemer, actually sometimes they had to do more with me willing acknowledge something good in fear of it’s greatness would complicate my already scrambled future, or present.
At times I would sit in your classes and just allow myself to imagine myself as a student attending that college. Or when I would just casually wander into the grocery outlet, acting like a student getting that night meal, or picking out my favorite cereal for the week. It is amazingly frustrating how life seems so versatile, yet completely unchangeable, when you know there is another destination, a whole different world, waiting for you. That other world you can’t leave behind no matter the pro’s and cons you mentally make in your head for the place you’re wandering around, observing, and loving. I admit to feeling that confusion this past week, and in two minutes of panic I almost wanted to wake you up and tell you all these epiphanies, lucky I don’t wake a sleeping person. The morning light really reminds me of real life, and how great my reality is most of the time. Even when I complain, I have a million and one things to be thankful for. Friends that make me laugh to a point of tears. That hopeful glance I get from some one I think could be important to me if they aren’t already. The smile that I get when I feel completely amazed at some grandeur of God’s grace, usually lost in singing, while closing my eyes. And lastly, these letters to you. These letters allow me to explore the inner depths of how I really feel, and say them not only to a computer screen but to you, my friend.
So, as I leave this place with you I want you to know how much I love you, and to remind you how wonderfully brilliant your story is.
We have grown up together and I saw much of your life in the small town we call home, but when some one is absent from that place you can only imagine that other world they describe to you. Like many descriptions there is holes to reality. I stepped inside that reality this past week, the holey world I could only imagine, and I put on your lenses. The lenses of love for where you’re at, but also the fear of where you could be going. Stepping back into my own shoes I realize how identical our feelings are in regard to small issues as well as the over all picture. We are trying so desperately to obtain something in this life, and most occasions I know what that is: truth, purpose, and readiness to except the hand dealt to us. There is just the overall question to these things: how do we receive and know when we have found that purpose?
Just today you said to me: “.. there is no point in worrying about what is in the future..”.. for the future will take care of it’s self. I think forever I will be one to look at all the simplicities of life and smile, but still acknowledge that I haven’t lived my full adventure, my destined purpose. I hope there is a moment in time that we can hit each other and whisper with a smile on our faces and say “hey, so I just realized my purpose..” then live it to the best of our abilities. We don’t have to worry about the future, for the future and our purpose has found us.

“Halfway around the world
Lies the one thing that you want
Buried in the ground, hundreds of miles down.”
-The Fray

And by the way, I miss you.