So… I used to never want to talk about anything… Never wanted to dig too deep, never wanted to discuss a “serious” or “hard” topic in regards to a man–woman, boy–girl relationship… I routinely would dodge any semblance of a serious conversation, refused to participate in any talk about the future, did my own thing, cared mostly only for myself and then had the audacity to wonder why I one day woke up crestfallen and full of discontent…

I think the reasoning for these reluctances to “dig in” have varied in my life… The intensities of these reluctances also shown no sign of being consistent either…In the briefest of summations, I have concluded the following in relation to this piece of my past…

“I feared hurt and the chance of being hurt”…

(or as I had first listed “I was chicken shit”, but decided against actually listing this bit of nomenclature for fear of being viewed as too much of a redneck. : )

I know that not dealing with the points of pain and fears in my life have cost me dearly…I also know that it’s never too late… I can’t go back and begin at the beginning… but I can start now and make a new ending…That’s probably in my top 10 of mantras…

Recently in my life I survived an epiphany… I decided that not communicating the things inside of me was a mistake… The feeling of sincerely wanting to get my act together offered a new lease on life for me…

I took a long walk alone on Thanksgiving Day of 2008. I left out from my house around 5AM; it was an unseasonably warm and sunny day… I carried with me my laptop, blackberry, pen, paper and a lot of heavy feelings… I drove to the East Nashville Greenway area… I was able to pick up a wireless signal from the surrounding neighborhood area most of the time…. I sent numerous emails of thanks to those who have helped and loved me the most… When emailing failed, I began to text; the phone rang several times from some unexpected places… I wandered quite far that day… Somewhere in the tears, walking, laughter and beautiful sadness of a sunny, solitude filled Thanksgiving Day… I decided I needed to do better, to try harder… I needed to become better at living out loud and on purpose… I previously, had been expert on hiding and not allowing vulnerability into my life… I promised myself somewhere out there in my ambulation that I would allow parts of my broken ego to die, so that the best parts of me had a genuine chance to truly live… One of the last things I did, after both the battery on the laptop and blackberry had expired… was to make of list of the things I wanted the most in my life… I’ve mentioned a couple of times this “list”…If you can make a list… Great! That’s step one and your more ahead of the game than most… If you actually have one or two of the things on your list, I recommend a heavy dose of gratitude… daily and anew… Embracing your blessings can and will drive away your burdens… I felt it better to move on, than hold on…I arrived back to my car at nearly dark, 500p or so… I had taken water with me, but hadn’t eaten all day… Oddly I wasn’t hungry when I arrived to the car... I feel as if I had fed on rebirth… Somehow throughout the course of the day my sustenance was the possibility that I realized lay before me… It was possibility that I had denied myself for far too long… I wasn’t the sad things that happened to me… I wasn’t the mistakes I made… I wasn’t much more than an animal walking this earth, but I wanted to be an animal with an out loud and on purpose heart, everyday that I lived…

This epiphany has given way to a couple of others…Coming to realize who you love, and why you love them is a feeling that is second to none…

I started this post with the ideas of pain, communication and suppression in loving relationships… The aforementioned walk covered all manner of darkness for me… Mostly I focused on what I want in my life…A couple of times in the months that have come to pass I have retrieved my list… All at once I can feel the sun on my face from that day, the contrast of the cool autumn breeze… When I hold the list I’m back to that day, I feel the gratitude in my heart… I gaze at this list; I feel love, progress, growth and possibility in what I have listed… Can I ask for anything more?? ?


I had a great conversation with a dear friend recently about God and pain… I’m referring to the pain that sometimes comes out of our eyes, the pain that is an anvil on our heart, the pain that keeps us from our joy…

My friend essentially thought that the pain is presented to us by God as an instrument of invoking us to communicate somehow to someone… something… Not to say that God wants us to hurt, moreover God wants us to feel and think (as if those two things went hand in hand)… He did mention numerous times that the “communicating” most likely needs to be going to God, in the form or prayer… Talking to friends, family, loved ones, of course are also tantamount to progress in relation to addressing the pain. Also, the pain would remain till we’ve talked enough to whomever we needed to talk to… By parallel, once we’ve talked enough, the pain would have diminished.. So I came to ask.. Can I then assume…conterminously…. That pain and communication with the right people, places and timing will allow both the pain and the want/need to talk about the pain to dissipate together… maybe ??? No universal solutions were agreed upon, but it was a great talk with a great friend…

The pain that we can’t figure out who to talk to is by far the worse…. Maybe a two way tie with the pain that we also realize isn’t logical…Trying to be logical and feeling hurt all at the same time leaves you somewhere between frustrated and anxious…

I try to find balance in thinking and feeling… as I’ve stated many times … a work in progress to say the least…


I’ve realized that spewing my pain out on the world isn’t the best idea either… This is where I find myself now… This also is where I want to explore a deeper understanding, somewhere within the realm of loving, open communication and the proper suppression to filter out the unnecessary issues I should own and truly embrace… I want to be able to address what needs to be communicated to one another…and leave my ugly humanness aside…

I want to achieve the most effective, efficient communication possible with the one I love the most, so we can spend our time enjoying our life together… as I know no one enjoys emotion wrenching conversations… no one wants to feel as if they are in a “fight” I’m done fighting, I’m going to stick with talking, listening, trusting and living out loud with someone I love…

I know I struggle with the best time to talk about hard things with the one I love the most… All I’ve come up with so far is this… With all the love I can, after I’ve allowed enough thought to pass, when my partner is in a place where she can really “hear” me... so I can be the best person I can for me.. And for her…

With the right amounts of suppression and thought, communication and love, time and prayer, meditation and patience… The realities of time, space, damage and distance don’t seem like such an unconquerable foe…

There is much more to love than simply always getting what you want…

Melancholy moments are moments and moments alone…everyone at some point in time will find themselves there.

I recently read a very thought provoking book that encompasses “Loving and Letting Go”… this thought I’d very much like to explore and expound on sometime in the near future…

I know that giving into trust fully, and with your whole heart takes time… more often than not, one will come well before the other…

Somewhere betwixt acceptance, compromise, and understanding what you truly want… is my salvation, my resurrection and all of the reasons I’m grateful for every millisecond of this life…

Tune of the day

“So Far From Me”
By Brett Dennen

If the greatest pains in our respective lives come from relationships? Is it also possible that the greatest joys come from relationships also?

Do we experience God through other people?

Does every person bring with them a lesson?

This isn’t a new thought from me at all, people come in and out of our lives, some stay longer than others. The older you get the more things get taken from you, if we are way more than lucky we are growing from our mistakes, dodging jadedness, and following love based logic…

I know that my deepest pains have come from relationships… that pain could be called by many different names, betrayal quite often, indifference sometimes, the only constant being the realization of my own flaws in a relationship and truly embracing all that I need to own and work on to become a better mate and partner…

Where am I in the process? Still learning … I do the best I can, some days are better than others : )


I hold true to the hope that my greatest healing will come from a relationship…

I spoke earlier of jadedness and lessons learned…

As people go to and fro in our life like busboys in a crowded restaurant… Some busboys are bringing things we very much enjoy, some are taking away things we are finished with, some bring us crap we didn’t order… Inevitably some disappoint us greatly; we vow never to return to that locale, thus severely affecting our feelings on tipping… (Forgive that awful analogy)

Maybe there are a few people out there in the world that don’t have to learn and then re learn after a bad break in love… My guess is that these people are out there somewhere… I think most of us, will learn something only to un learn it, then if we are lucky, allow ourselves to re learn…

If we can trust and heal, love and hope, we will re learn, then grow, live and evolve with the people and to the places that love us the most….



Tune Of The Day:
“Home”
By David Mead

“Life”… is what is actually happening … while we wait for moments that never come” …

So… Tell me about your life…

Where would you begin? Where would your mate? Where would your parents? Where would your friends?

I would like to think that I have a general idea as to where those closest to me would begin…

Sadly, I think several of my friends would start out with an overly glamorized description of their twentieth century invention called a “career” . . .

The well adjusted, “fully aware of the human condition” friends of course would start out with some profound statement of being…

I think some would start out with the “funeral” style description of a life...Here lay so and so, son of so and so...whether tragedy or triumph he did this, then came that, etc… I do not debate that family is tantamount to life, and family may very well be what will define you… so I’m not saying the funeral style description of a life is wrong, rather that is just a possible style to describe one’s life…

Author Anne Lamont tells a great story in her book “Grace Eventually” wherein she tells of an evening she spent with some mentally challenged adults. She participated as a “helper” at a dance which the group of adults held… Anne enjoyed herself, danced and laughed and all while also performing her “helper’ duties… At the end of the evening, an administrator of sorts gathered the adults to thank all of the helpers. One of the adults exuberantly exclaimed that they were all very fond of one particular helper, as she was … a helper… and she danced …

Anne Lamont goes on to say that she wants those words etched on her tombstone, I have to agree that would be high enough praise for me… I too strive to be a helper, and to dance…

The quote with which I started from best I can tell is my own thought… I know it’s very subject to interpretation and debate… The most obvious point of debate being the notion of “waiting” and more specifically the “moments that never come” … As much as I enjoy thinking and discussing love based logics vs. fear based logics, … I feel that this quote pulls from fear alone, maybe different aspects of fear, maybe fear that isn’t without reason or purpoe, but I think they are all fear based nevertheless…

Lets start with a person who is certain that great things will happen for them, but the moments… never come, inevitably this person will be left disappointed, hurt, broken down and full of despair ? ? ? (Faith)

Now let’s think of a person that fears horrible things will happen for them and lurk around every corner of life... This person spends their life afraid, never really living, one foot out the door, full of terror and doubt… ? ? ? (Pragmatism)

Then again, there is also the word “actually”… that brings to mind that maybe we are all missing out on something, as Life is actually happening while we are all waiting… waiting for what is irrelevant as I’m fairly sure at some point in time we’ve all wished or waited our life away for not… what are we waiting on ? ? ?

Thinking about this world and its finiteness in relation to time drive me crazy sometimes… I’m pushing myself more and more to embrace the things in this world that aren’t bound by time and are truly infinite…

Love can and will live forever, I believe that in my heart, soul and bones…

Kindness, generosity and the process of at least trying to become selfless… I believe will also ring out for all time and well beyond this world…

I don’t have anything other than a hope that I can embrace my life and the things I love daily. That I’m involved and engaged in the things that surround me. That I reach out daily for the things I care about the most with both arms… For I know faith and love have found me, and faith and love have set me free.

In as far as the waiting is concerned, I think the mixture of faith and pragmatism is what is most often lived out… but I think we cling to the “practical” too much and too often…

I make a daily effort to be much more rooted in love and faith than in pragmatic thought… I wasted many years of my life being solely practical, years that I will not get back…

I think the best choice we can make is to live a life that celebrates love and faith as a conscious choice. The moments in which a breath of pragmatism is drawn will come for certain… don’t dwell or wait on them for too long… that’s just my opinion.

Tune choice of the day:
“Loves You The Most”
Brett Dennen