A Changing of Circumstance

Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you had been born in a different place? If you had grown up somewhere completely different from the city in which you actually did? Do you ever wonder then what the person you are today would look like? Do you ever question whether you would have the same values, standards, beliefs, dreams, and loves you do now if you hadn’t of had the same experiences you did then? People can change, they generally choose not too because it’s too hard, but they can… if they really want to that is. Generally people change due to circumstances. The circumstances cause a person to grow, to deal with life, and the ways in which we deal with whatever events life hands to us, causes us to change into the people we are today. But is it possible for a person to use circumstances to change in the ways that they want to? Instead of letting the circumstances change you?

The above picture is a picture of the house I lived in for the longest period of time, for five years. I've lived in 12 different houses. But this one I actually helped make liveable. We had to re-chink the outer walls, we installed in-floor heating, and poured/stained the concrete. We installed heaters, appliances, and made the basement into a TV room, guest room, bath, office, and laundry room. I grew up on the Continental Divide in Colorado... I lived there for almost eight years of my life. And when someone asks me where I'm from, the only place that remotely ever felt like home is this cabin.

I was born in Houston. I wonder if I had stayed there, if my family and I had never moved to Colorado, if I would be a different person. Would I be a better person? Or would I be worse? Or just the same... I bet I wouldn't be so naive. I bet my view of the world wouldn't be so innocent. Living in a very conservative family, being raised at a Christian Mountain Adventures Camp, created a very safe, sheltered world for me. But I doubt I would have ever found myself in the situation I found myself in on October 4th. I doubt I would have been that naive... My view of the world, had I grown up in Houston, would be a lot less innocent, but a lot more realistic.

Do circumstances change people? Can people change circumstances? Or can we make the change be a change for the better?

Questioning what Matters

Have you ever found yourself in need to just step outside of yourself for a while? To take a drive just to see where you'll end up? To listen to classical music, just to be able to create the words on your own? To dance a dance no one has danced before? To compose your own song?

Have you ever tried to count the stars in a night, or stopped recently just to find a familiar constellation?

Have you ever wished a wish at exactly eleven hours and eleven minutes just to see what would happen? Have you ever dreamed a dream just to see where it would take you?

Have you ever walked along the beach late at night, accompanied only by the sound of the waves crashing along the shore?

Have you ever given time to your thoughts, or has it always been something too intimidating to really do?

Have you ever not been able to cry for a long time, and then the littlest thing happens and you can't stop the flood of tears? It's like they just needed one more tiny thing to happen before they could let loose...

Have you ever truly stopped to smell a rose? Or to look at something growing in the oddest of places? Like a flower pushing itself up through the cracks in the concrete?

There are some pretty incredible things in this world, if only we took the time to truly enjoy them...

A Matter of Friendship

Today I encountered something; something that may appear trivial to some, but maybe not so much so to others. It was along the lines of friendship. I never realized just how much I was missing while growing up in a small town, a town where every child went to the public school, but I was still only one of two in my grade. I didn’t know the meaning of friendship from people my own age. I lived in a place and time where I found friends among the young adults, in their twenties, and in their children, in pre-k and younger. My closest confidante was my younger brother, and probably still is to this day… well him and my best friend. I’ve known this friend for about six years now, and it’s weird to think that it’s been that long. We met in my town, (the one that’s in the middle of nowhere); his family was there on vacation. We saw each other again the summer after, five years ago, and actually exchanged contact information that time… and that was the beginning of a friendship, one of the few I have been an actual part of. I have retained a friendship with two of my closest childhood friends from my few short years spent in a big city, Houston to be exact, which is where I was born. But those two friendships are hard to maintain, when I see them it’s like we haven’t ever been a part, conversation flows easily, and our hearts are shared, bonds that were starting to grow weak strengthen, but they are hard friendships, ones that time and distance have taken their toll on. I pray one day those two friends and I will be able to live in the same city once more, and grow our friendships once more.

Recently, however, on a brighter note, my friend, best guy friend I guess you could say, and I are now living in the same city. What started out as a summer friendship, what faded into almost complete nothingness over the past two years of us not seeing or really talking to each other, has now moved into an even deeper friendship. One that could possibly be called a true friendship… See I think in this day in age, in America at least, we use words so frivolously. We have no idea what the actual meaning of the word is when we say it, it’s just something to say, and since it takes too much effort to actually learn the words to convey what it is we want to convey, we stick to what we know and hear. Broadening our minds is something foreign to most of Americans in the young generations. Yes, we go to college, and yes we listen to speakers, our elders, or the crazy smart home-schooled student sitting two rows in front; but we don’t go out of our way, generally, to find that word that would enable us to say what it is we actually want to say. How truly sad it is.
We generally use the word ‘friend’ to describe someone whom we know the name of, say ‘hi’ to when we see them, and maybe we’re even friends on facebook, myspace, or some other world wide web socializing community... maybe. The word that probably should be used to describe them is ‘acquaintance.’

I try to use words as they should be used, but I’m not the best at it. I have, for example, used the word ‘friend’ to describe people from my past with whom I grew up, but in actuality I didn’t even get along with. But recently I have discovered that there is a difference between an acquaintance and a friend, and that the words should be used as they were first intended.

Not only have I had the opportunity to grow and develop a deep, true friendship with my now good guy friend (I don’t like to use the term best friend, I know I did earlier, but I just think it singles too much out, like it’s being too specific, you give one person a title of ‘best’ and then what do you do with your other three friends with whom you get along with just as well?), but I have also had the opportunity to watch new beginnings of friendships come into being. It’s an even more exciting feeling than when I was a child and I started a new friendship with someone. See, my town was so small, and most people didn’t stay for too long. You’d make a friend in school one year, and by the next semester they’d be gone, sometimes even before… no exaggeration here, I promise. So now, to be able to stand in a city, surrounded by people who, yes they could move at any given moment, but for the time being looks like they’ll at least be around long enough to begin a friendship that can weather distance and time with the best of ‘em… well, it’s exciting stuff to say the least.

I don’t really know what the point of writing this was. Save that it was a matter of my heart, and I felt compelled to share.