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| maybe i'm crazy, but it seems like there's a lot of tension in my circles of close vicinity- physical and/or emotional proximity. i'd say there are four main areas of life that are (generally) universally important to everyone: career, love, friends, and family, in no particular order here. i guess it's too much to expect that all would be generally well in those four areas for everyone, or at least everyone in my circles of close vicinity, and myself. that might actually be something akin to contentment. i'm not sure that i've ever known it. i take a look at the landscape and it's like an atom bomb went off and blew up certain pieces of people's lives... and we're all living with the tension of survival coiled tightly under our smiling exteriors. i suppose it's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit to stay afloat despite deep wounds in certain areas of their lives. or a demonstration of the human mind's ability to soldier on in subconsciously self-administered anesthesia. as always, it's probably both and more. don't psychologists suggest smiling physically when you're down and out as the physical act fools the mind into thinking that all must be well since you're smiling? i wonder if i'm taking the easy way out by asking God to remove me from the pain and not willing to stretch myself to deal with the pain. as always, another timely message... another reminder that the God out there knows and cares about what's going on in here. | | |
| there are certain times when i'm like a child, pushing my boundaries just to see who and when someone will stop me and say, well, stop. Not unlike a certain teen pop star-turned- skankhopsycho.
like when Ohene stopped me in my tracks and told me to stop bullshittin' him.
i respect it when people call me out straight up. it's like a sadomasochistic thrill of mine.
... i think i need Jesus. bad. i done messed it all up real real bad.
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| My previous firm was a lot less stuffy and rigid than my current employer. Attorneys, paralegals, service people and the copy guys all mixed and chilled as equals, more or less. Part of it was business- it really helped to be tight with the guy who could rush your 1500 page copy job to the head of the queue of orders- and part of it was just that everyone seemed to have respect for their fellow man.
Darrell was one of the mail guys. His balding round head was flecked like salt and pepper and sat on his spherical body accentuated with a belly to match Santa. But while he had a sense of humor, he wasn't exactly a jolly good fella. More like a weary old (for his years) life veteran. We talked whenever he swung by and when I asked, "How are you?", he would actually respond honestly, transparently.
He told me stories about his kids and their mothers, his ex-girlfriends. He told me about his sleep apnea and the expensive, not quite effective device that he would try and sleep on to remedy it. Another related issue with the device was that his apartment only had a single working outlet. And really crappy insulation and cracks around his windows. When I spoke with him in the winter, he had to choose between plugging in the space heater, the sleep apnea device and his alarm clock. So he had to choose between being in relative warmth (compared to the cold outdoors blowing in through the cracks), sleeping and waking up in time for work. Guess what combination he chose when he had his kids over. Dude looked so tired the next day. But he loved his children and his face would light up when speaking about them. And his face would draw a shadow when he described how he wanted to provide so much more for them... and how embarrassed he was that he couldn't always provide their basic necessities.
He told me about his Xbox and TV, his one source of entertainment at home, getting jacked, by a homeless guy no less, the day he moved into that one-outlet apartment. That day, he was moving his few possessions in a shopping cart from his old housing complex to his new spot. And after he dropped off his Xbox and returned for a second trip, an observant homeless guy broke through the flimsy door and lock and took off with the loot. The homeless guy then went around the complex, peddling the fenced goods.
Darrell made less than half my salary. He didn't eat very often or well. I would order extra food on the firm's tab (within my alloted budget, if it matters) and pretend like it was mine and was too full to eat it. He'd gladly take it off my hands to do me the favor. I was too full to eat it. Sometimes he really starved for days, usually leading up to payday. He'd sometimes borrow $20 from me. And then he would go and spend half of that for one McDonald's extra value meal and I would bite my tongue. He was always good about paying me back.
I have never felt this sort of perpetual despair that Darrell calls daily life in my own. But today I thought that maybe I came close to feeling heartache of the same nature and magnitude. It seemed that one after another, painful revelation beget painful revelation met painful revelation. And that uneasy jagged rock sitting in my stomach isn't going away any time soon. As I rode the subway to SoHo, I thought that maybe a little bit of pain is good. It makes you feel alive. Or close to death. But then again, aren't those two synonymous?
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| My dad made a funny this morning at brunch.
I was telling my parents how beautiful Phil's kids are (Korean + Italian + German = adorable) and my dad cuts in with a chuckling, "You were cute too... when you were a baby..." And my mom starts laughing real hard, which makes my dad's chuckle turn into uncontrollable chuckle-wheezing as he tries to hide behind his napkin.
I'm sitting there dumb-founded that my parents could be so mean, when my mom shares a story that I had heard before and repressed.
After I was born, the doctors put me in a crib along with the other newborns that 13th day of July, 25 years ago. They then brought my mom over to see me after I'd been cleaned up... and there were two Asian babies lying side by side. She looked at the cute one and exclaimed how adorable he was. And then the doctors picked up the fat, buddha-looking one and gave me to her. Apparently, she thought it was a mistake. But it wasn't.
I have a nekkid picture of me when I was a little baby. I had really big nuticles. I wonder what happened since then.
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| it's 3:30 and the sun will peek out in a couple of hours... i can't sleep.
I had the best time in the Sierras two weeks ago... came back and was stunned at how out of sync I felt back in corporate life. I saw a bunch of hamsters running on their wheels trying to get an edge, a bunch of tools vying to be the biggest tool in the toolbox, you might say... and it all seemed so silly. I'm not saying the mundane working life is unnecessary- it's fully impractical to spend all your days hiking up and down mountains and all your nights sleeping next to beautiful lakes- but there are ants 11,000 feet up on peaks rarely visited by man that live just fine, thanks to the Lord's provision. Are we really that much more important? I know, there are two responses to that question and they're both right in a way.
Shifting gears- was looking through some party pics I found online.. Is it just me, or are all the girls at the clubs girls you would never even take home to meet your dog in case he mistook her for a long-lost cousin or lover or both? Either the camera doesn't find the eye candy or the pretty girls don't patronize venues scheming to milk your pockets dry in return for bad drinks, crammed with ugly/unlucky guys who like to grope, get drunk and belligerent. Maybe pretty girls are actually smarter.. must be a Darwinian thing or something.
It's sad, almost depressing, that you can put so much effort into a friendship only for it to fade away. I've been on both ends, the giving and receiving. Something about us getting old- or maybe just more self-centered- where our circle of friends shrinks like a wool sweater in the dryer.
I was reading Robert D. Lupton's reflections on his life in the Atlanta inner-city and was struck by a couple of old-truths that had slipped my mind:
- Love trumps "rightness." Love triumphs over principle/advocacy/justice/fairness.
- "[Jesus'] teachings are suicidal for the successful. There's only one way to climb the Christian ladder- and that is to go down.
DOWN..
-sigh-
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