My title for this is Shadow of a Doubt... The real title should be "What to do instead of studying.". While I was out in a field next to my apartments watching the eclipse, I thought about quite a few things. The first thing I thought about was my annoyance at the light pollution. The other was my annoyance at myself for not having enough of my school work completed so that I could go out to Brazos Bend with a friend of mine to experience this. The last was curiosity. People seemed oblivious to this eclipse, why is that, how is that? How can you not stare in wonder?  

Writing is emotional labor. My writing stretches pieces of me along the page as I write. I seem unable to throw what I am thinking and feeling into a few sentences, I live in the parenthesis, I find I can't end my thoughts with neat simple periods.

I've been particularly conflicted this week. I have lots to write about but no time to do it. I'm waiting the results of some dimwitted decisions this week. If things work out in the way I expect I will have a few very drab posts.

I started writing this blog again in hopes of giving light hearted commentary, but a dark vein seems to spread through my writing on its own.

This is probably due to my insistent focus on myself for the last month or so. Anybody that tells you that your guide to happiness and self-fulfillment starts with focusing on you is Lyyyyiiinnngggg!!!!

I've become aware that I need to get my focus back on God, where it belongs. How many times will I have to learn this lesson? Will this time be the last? I doubt it. It's a different lesson really; it's slight variations on the same theme.

My compromises weren't great leaps of moral degradation, they were small slips, inward struggles that I began loosing because I've been skipping my quite times in the morning.

Without a focus on God, without spending time in prayer, church, and the Bible I become a gray person. Doubt and fear create this self-loathing, reclusive, apathetic individual I see in the mirror.

It makes sense, place a tree in darkness and it will twist itself; stretch to meet a single ray of light. My sprit was in the midst of twisting, searching, for that ray of light for the last couple of weeks.

I want to write more on this, and other things. How much would I have to say if I lived and interesting life?

BTW – I installed the software to post pics up, what can I say, I like it a lot!!

Doctored Photo -- Took this around Dayton, TX.

When It Rains... 

There is a short story entitled “The Storm” I read during one of my college literature classes. The story involves an affair consummated after a storm forces two lovers together beyond their control. Just about everyone thrashed the story for its loose morals, and lame excuses (Lee Community College could not be considered a liberal school).

Saturday I thought about that story. I was sitting in a Herman Park gazebo during a rain shower. Next to me was an old friend of mine.

She called me a couple of weeks ago to find out if I would be interested in taking a few pictures of her family for Christmas.

“Sure,” I said, why not?

She wanted to meet up before bringing her kids out to the park to discuss where we would take the pictures, what sort of clothes to wear, etc… We met up on Saturday at Herman, and started touring a few places I thought would make for good pictures.

“I’ve been thinking of leaving my husband,” she said.

I knew. I knew when she first called me.

I knew, and I shouldn’t have gone. I knew, but I wanted to find out, to massage my ego a little. All I managed to do was make myself feel sick inside. It’s been a while since I’ve committed sin that ached as deep as this does.

A year ago, the situation wouldn’t have bothered me; a year ago, I may have been open for whatever it was she wanted from me. My conscience trembled with repulsion Saturday, I am not the me of a year ago.

We sat in a gazebo when the rain came. Another couple escaped the wet with us for a while. They sat with us, but they were alone to themselves.

Five minutes after they left, we decided to make our way to the parking lot. As we made our way, we saw the gazebo couple near the reflection pool. She was barefoot, surrendering her sandals to the rain, he was soaked, and down on one knee, purposing. She held the umbrella over her head, but somehow drops still slipped down her cheek.

Consider the contrast of my “friend” and I as we sat in the gazebo next to this couple.

How strange human relationships are. If you were to take a relationship and follow it from beginning to end, the emotions involved are overwhelming.

My “friend” (I’m sick of calling her that) and I have known each other for around ten years. She’s a couple of years older than I, and when we first met, I was infatuated with her.

Two years after we met I was still infatuated with her, but reserved, being turned down will do that to you. She got married around that time. Six months later, she had her first child. A year and a half later, she had her second.

I’ve seen her maybe three times over the last five years. Age does something to taste, the last time we met I saw her for what she was, a user.

Our relationship has come full circle, from my pursuing her, to her pursuing me. It will go no farther. I have no desire to be part of the grief she will bring into her life. Her path is set on selfishness now; she doesn’t care about her kids, only herself.

My professor for literary criticism was a man of the world; he argued with most of the class that the characters from “The Storm” had no choice in their actions, they were compelled by destiny to come together. There was a girl in the class, she had been cheated on, she was vehement, “It’s just water, water doesn’t compel anyone,” she said.

My friend will find someone, sooner or later; there are a lot of suckers out there. There will be excuses, accusations, drama. She may feel that she has been compelled to find romance in her life to fill voids left by her husband. Would it do any good to tell her the voids are hers, she’ll just carry them with her to the next relationship.

I passed and failed a test this weekend. I passed on an invitation, failed to see the real test was not showing up in the first place.