running in circles

have you ever known what a strange thing it is to be in love? have you ever known what a strange thing it is for things to be crashing down upon you, to not choose the easy way out, to stand up instead for whatever it was you felt worthy of standing up for? have you ever known the sensation of things bigger than you, of battles larger than life, of a responsibility you could not fulfill? and have you ever felt lost? blind, hopeless, abandoned? have you felt like you had it all and you gave it away, that you lost your shot, that nothing will ever be as big as it could have been?

i was watching ATF TV on channel 23, apparently, a skit excerpt from ATF with Ron Luce talking at the end. in the skit, the protagonist had been a Christian for a while and then dumped the lifestyle for what was "cool." and the popular girl he likes that he thought did not notice him started talking to him, which he thought was the result of becoming "cool." but the real thing? she liked him a year ago, when he didn't think she noticed him. she liked him a year ago when he walked through the halls at school and smiled and he seemed to stick out of the crowd because he had a life. and now, he had changed. and she wanted to confide in him, but once she had finally moved close enough to do so, she had realized he had changed. he wasn't this person anymore, not the one she was counting on him to be.

and so...a year later, he finds he's moved three steps behind. though his good intentions were unmistakable, he had moved himself back. he had what he wanted...but it wasn't what he thought he wanted, so he changed himself just in time to learn that he had what he wanted all along. and he blew it.

and i blew it. i'm not talking regretfully, i'm not living in the past, but do you want to know the truth? i'm living in the past. and though some part of me knows i have to move on, another part screams out to salvage what is left.

i read a Rob Bell book about how we have to live with this tension of being human beings. we're not animals, which means that some things are bound to happen simply by instinct and we can't help ourselves, that we're just going through uncontrollable motions and emotions. and we're not angels, which do not exactly know what it means to feel pain and to feel joy and to maybe feel like something is at danger. but we're something else by being human, and we owe it to ourselves to live with this tension, the tension of being something great.