silent miles

things i need to remember to write about:

emf, jesus jones, big audio - all the sameish sounds

spencer getting to hop on a ferro mexico train

courtney in ukraine

spencer at school [spitting, etc]

new living room, kids furniture

mbtween & work [the resume] and how i got a raise

august 31st, last day of the month

when sarah tries to explain why i have a hug-defensive exterior, it is usually something about confidence or assurance or something like that where it seems as if i don't need a hug, that i know that i am okay so just move along. i'm not at that spot right now. i feel as if i am in middle school again, all 60 pounds of me, being asked to do something that is probably just within my reach but hard hard hard. i'm not sure if i am up to the task.

i believe i'm starting to fill the role of a mentor. it was never something i could have planned — i'm not that bright and i definetly cannot forsee something i don't believe i've seen much of or experienced. i don't even know who to talk to about it — who is there to ask? i’m on my 200th day in space and there is a problem and ground control can only give me theories and good guesses and i’m the one they've entrusted the space craft and the sucess upon. i feel isolated within a crowd.

glenneth said that our culture has lost the roles of mentors, especially the church, but here i am. he is right, i am only now getting to a place where i am capable of that role, but i have no markers from anyone ahead of me. other than all of the above, it is more than that — it is not suggesting investments or choosing a restaurant for dinner — i have input on people's lives, real people with hearts and souls and feelings and decisions to make. those that look to me for part of their advice, aka «what do you think?» packet, i feel like i am failing.

i feel like it, though i don't think i really am. it is many things. i expected to part of the joy in people's lives, to hear how things are going, and going well. i did not expect numbing pain and dissappointment, uselessness and being a failure. maybe i am just getting prepped for the what my kids may potentially bring sarah and i later in life. it really isn't a bad thing — it is a great thing. i am not closed off or indifferent — i am there for the good and the bad, and there is really no better place to be. to pull back means i would lose on the good side.

it isn't all about me, though, as what goes on with those you deeply care about affects not just them but those close to them. the post «the friend» is coming back again, and it is so very right but so incredibly tough. i cried my way to work today, which is no simple feat when that means i am riding in near blindness. i ache. i am sad. i am dissappointed. i question my own thoughts and decisions. i feel like i've let other people down, that i wasn't what they needed and i protected them poorly. i am dissappointed in myself, with something that i suggested going poorly like a commander on a battlefield that just cost the lives of half my troops. i would prefer to be the mother hen, the one that holds and covers and says it will be alright, that i am no leaving. i am not leaving, but staying and taking on that role is not looking as rosey at this very moment [which i am not fully sure how i got the mother hen tag in the first place - sort of]

for all the talk i give about trying and erring, as well as how often i try and err and get back up, this «err» of mine has knocked me back in my seat, though i know i can’t control the world. i don't want to. i don't want people to hurt, i want them to be whole and healthy and go where God wants them, and that is a very heavy place to be when i have become a part of that process with other people.

i'll keep going, as it is what is supposed to be, just like getting up at 3am with one of the kids throwing up in his bed or like spencer with NF or anything that comes up. it is a great honor to be here, to have gotten stronger and capable and responsible — responsible enough to do something more, to be entrusted with the lives of my friends.

that still doesn't make it any easier. i need to now be held and said it is good, that i am okay and that i can rest in someone elses embrace, but there seems to be nobody above me to take on that role but God. it is good, but it is also not. i write this to the nether-hole of the internet, my words to float outside of me, which gives a wee bit of consolation, but not much.