Of others worthwhile
She's coming apart
Tight before my eyes
The one who depends on the services she renders
To those who come knocking
She's seeing too clearly what she can't be
What understanding defies
She says I need not to need
Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go
I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow
She turns up the light
Anticipating night falling tenderly around her
Watches the dusk
The words won't come
She carries the act so convincingly
The fact is sometimes she believes it
She can be happy with the way things are
Be happy with the things she's done
And yet I need not to need
Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go
I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow
Reach out, hold back
Where is safety
Reach out and hold back
Where is the one who can change me
Where is the one
The one
Reach out, hold back
Where is safety
Reach out and hold back
Where is the one who can save me
Where is the one
The one
I need not to need
Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go
I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow
I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in the snow
The danger and the power
Friend and the foe
Maybe you won't quite understand where I'm coming from with this post, so I'm going to step out of my worldview for a moment and explain: my format is such that the midst of two lyric columns is a post-modern rendering of emotion and reality through words. However, because I am speaking specifically about an aspect of post-modernity that doesn't need a post-modern form of expression to be post-modern, I'm going to be explicit. And I'm going to be explicit in ways I would almost never be in so open a public place. But I don't think I have any readers right now. I wouldn't mind, in a couple of weeks/months/years when I have readers, if someone happens upon this..but it could be dangerous now. That, and it just might be evocative to the point of eliciting comments from people I didn't know were reading it. In any event, Valentine's day is giving rise to something of an outlining of relationships and love for me and for the world in which I live. I've also been trying a larger appeal to honesty in my life since the Super Bowl, and I feel like my unrelenting post-modernity doesn't always appeal to honesty. I mean it that way because I don't want to center myself, but I want to be honest about myself sometimes too, and more in my personal life than ever before. More on that later maybe.....
This will be the first Valentine's day for which I'm not in a relationship since my senior year of high school. Everyone loves parallelism, so you probably enjoy that more than I do.
I did a bit of facebook research and discovered that of all the girls I ever seriously wanted to date/dated, all but 3 are currently in relationships and all but 4(including those 3) are engaged/married...one has a kid already. That's Ciarra...she did things out of order, but I guess Juno did too. Those numbers might not mean much, but it means more than half are on the closer than farther side of nuptial bliss. One of the single former loves has only been single for a bit over 4 months, not at all coincidentally the exact amount of time for my current stint of relationshiplessness. I could think a lot of things about the statistics. More than anything, I guess I just think it means God is in control of love lifes. I basically pictured myself marrying all of them...all 11 of them, which is actually a very conservative number. But clearly, I wasn't the one for all of them.
On the other hand, the non-praising the Lord hand, the hand I wish I didn't have but do, it makes me feel like the bus is leaving without me, as all of the "in my league" as the lingo goes people in my life seem to be getting together right now. That happens in college, especially so late in the game (I've got 10 weeks of the total 120 left, so that's less than 10 percent, which means it's like the bottom of the 9th inning or something like that). Even so, it does beg the question of whether or not I missed some proverbial boat. But I say that fairly emotionlessly. I know God's plan is far from Carbon Copy, especially in regard to love of the romantic sort. The best analogue I've got for how I might end up is Jon and Julie Longacre, who were both around 30 when they got married...my first girlfriend had a kid before they did. As much as they clearly love each other, I really do hope I don't end up that way.
cut.
I don't know what it is about Audrey. By all counts, that really probably was my most successful relationship and I often doubt it should have ever happened. I mean Audrey as a form more than herself for the time being. I know Meg and I lasted longer, but we saw each other a lot less. I often think that if Meg and I saw each other more we would either still be together or wouldn't have lasted as long. Either or, I really don't know. I do know though, that what we did have was wonderful...however, the depth and growth of Audrey and myself in relationships, as a couple, and as individuals through the whole process was more than Meg and I ever got to have, thanks to being apart. So "best" defaults to Audrey. It shouldn't be quantified, but though I am a man of 5 "serious" relationships, but 2 of them ever felt "real," and one of those was insistently long distance. And I meant insistent, because even when we were together, it was rare that we were "together." In fact, when we were "together" (read: alone) was when the problems really arose. I still don't know what the point of any of it all was, I just know it all happened and I learned a lot, and if that was the point for what I'm going to basically boil down to two realationships (it's like the exact opposite of a friendlationship) and 30 months of love, then I'm okay with that. But I still don't know what it is about Audrey. She might be the first person I think of when I think about love and beauty, but maybe I still feel bad about the whole thing and everything with Meg. And I also feel a sense of loss. I don't own Spirited Away, but it's the most beautiful movie I've ever seen, and I bought it for Audrey for her birthday. I've missed a lot of things in my life, but since about October 10th 2005 I've not missed Christmas or a birthday for Audrey. It's irrational, horribly, horribly irrational. And I still bought her that sheep with the sweater. And I know she didn't lose those CDs I made her because I saw her hand them to Mark and tell him to break them during one of our last nights in China, and even then, I was said about it. But I had no right to be and have no right to be. There's another Anberlin link here, as streetlights sing on Audrey's song.
Actually, until I disqualifed Ciarra (3rd place in the most real relationship race), I guess I used to have a thing for exceptional singers. I'll probably tear up for an hour, from 2:30-3:30 on Feb. 28th.
cut.
I still wonder how much of me is in Meg and how much of Meg is in me. I'm not really sure what that means, but I feel like we got over that far too fast. Far, far too fast. That could belie a lot of things that I just don't understand. I hope she's well and pray for her everyday, but, maybe more than anyone else, and definitely more than anyone else that isn't engaged or married, I'm sure now that we weren't supposed to be together forever.
That begs the question of how I'm sure.....and I just am. It doesn't mean I don't look back on all of that fondly. It doesn't mean I don't feel sad when I see pictures of us on facebook. It doesn't mean I don't fear each facebook message from her because it could be some sort of me-instigated emotional breakdown. But it does mean that I know I was walking in faith, that we were walking in faith, to have called the whole thing off. Part of me does wish that this past fall conference was the last time I ever see Meg, at least until at least one of us (hopefully both) are married or something. There are a lot of things about that that would be so right...not the least of which being that dance. And there are other things about that dance that I just don't know about which, if (although it is terribly unlikely the longer I sit here and type without progress) other they fall into place, would make the whole things so ridiculously right God would look more poet than creator.
But our generation is addicted to relationships. We rely upon each other for validation as individuals and there is no deeper validation than that felt through proper, God-orchestrated romance. That might be "wrong" but it is right enough. I know we are to seek identity in Christ. I get that. I agree with that. But I'm not going to lie to you or make the wonderful Christian couples I know lie to me and say they aren't happier now than they would be if God never established the love between them. It's not everyone's calling, but how can we at all expect to be truly complete if we've not fulfilled so important a piece of God's calling for us as finding the love of our lives that he has established for us?
I sent a letter Tuesday, that I shouldn't have sent probably. But I know I did it because God wanted me to get past all that. Now we'll see how that happens. Although it may be that we don't see, and that's the point.
I measure the time and I stand amazed
Strange how I know inside you
My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze
And of course I forgive
I've seen how you live
Like a phoenix you rise from the ashes
You pick up the pieces
And the ghosts in the attic
They never quite leave
And of course I forgive
You've seen how I live
I've got darkness and fears to appease
My voices and analogies
Ambitions like ribbons
Worn bright on my sleeve
Strange how we know each other
Strange how I fit into you
There's a distance erased with the greatest of ease
Strange how you fit into me
A gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs
And with each passing day
The stories we say
Draw us tighter into our addiction
Confirm our conviction
That some kind of miracle
Passed on our heads
And how I am sure
Like never before
Of my reasons for defying reason
Embracing the seasons
We dance through the colors
Both followed and led
Strange how we fit each other
Strange how certain the journey
Time unfolds the petals
For our eyes to see
Strange how this journey's hurting
In ways we accept as part of fate's decree
So we just hold on fast
Acknowledge the past
As lessons exquisitely crafted
Painstakingly drafted
To carve ourselves instruments
That play the music of life
For we don't realize
Our faith in the prize
Unless it's been somehow elusive
How swiftly we choose it
The sacred simplicity
Of you at my side
-Zack
"Rise up and meet your father, join in the joyous resound"
-The Showdown
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