I’m Still Here…but not there

This blog is about my journey to discovering my feeling about church, relationships, and God. Sometime that journey contains little asides; this is one of those times.

I am going through a tough time in my journey. The feelings of emptiness, and the crushing loneliness have not faded since the Mexico Fiasco - well, a little - I don't cry ALL the time; but almost every day something still reminds me that I am here, not there. This is not a bad thing - I like it here, but I know that there is more to life than being by ourselves, doing nothing almost every evening. We wonder what we did wrong to make others not like us, and we realize that we did nothing wrong - it's just the way it is. People are busy, friends grow apart; doesn't make it any easier.

This is starting to sound like one of my old blogs - moan whine why me oh blah blah blah. Well ... sorry. This is my blog, my journey, my life. Since I am here and you are not, then I can write whatever I want to.

We have some great friends. They live far away. I love them dearly, but I hate long distance relationships, and I can't get close to someone over the internet. Sorry.

And that leads me to so-called "social" networking. It. is. Not. Social. Sorry to disappoint you. If you think that having 478 friends means you are popular, think again. If it weren't for for Farmville, I would have fewer “friends”. I might even give up on Facebook altogether if it wasn’t a good place to connect with a few real friends.

I learned the term Tabula Rasa in a Geography class in university. In that context, it meant “clean slate”, referring to the original cartographers, or map makers, who helped discover and map the New World. According to Wikipedia, it is also a belief that we are born without content or perception.

This is all very interesting, but what the he… wait a second, I am getting to that.

Stefani and I want to make a clean break, start over, start with a clean slate. We don’t necessarily want to forget everyone and start again, but we want to go somewhere where there are not constant reminders of failed and broken relationships. We want to be far away from the people that we “see” everyday online that only remind of us past hurts; wondering why, if we are so close in physical distance, are we so far away. We want to increase the physical distance, so that the emotional distance matches. In some cases, that would put us in … say … Siberia, or Mongolia … maybe Tibet?

Does this make sense?

Why am I so sad? I ask myself that question all the time. I think it is the utter disappointment of losing what was, to me, the perfect job. I know that there is no such thing, that is why it is still called a “job” – there is a curse that is a attached to the word labour (Gen 3:17). But this was really too good to be true – I guess that’s the way it turned out.

How do I get un”saddened”? A friend said to me the other day, “Chin up, Buttercup”. That made me smile. Maybe that is all there is to it. Enjoy what you have today, forget about what once was, or what could be, and concentrate on what is – the here and the now.

Now, I have a great life. I am in a loving, committed, long-term relationship with a beautiful woman that I adore, and that adores me. I have a great car that makes me smile every time I see it, and I get excited every time I drive it. I live in a fantastic city, on the beach, in a great place. I have a great job … wait, still working on that one. Might be a change in the near future – I will keep you posted. I have a few really good people in my life that I can call friends – you know who you are.

What am I whining about? Time to stop.

That was a small valley, and I thank you for traversing it with me.

namaste :)