Chills

There's nothing better than waking up early in the morning, throwing on some clothes, not worrying about what you look like, and going running. When you're done and its only 8:30/9 o'clock and you know that most people haven't even woke up yet and you've gone 5 miles it makes it all worth it. Though you may feel like complete death those last couple of minutes, when you finish there's some amazingly pure feeling you receive. It's such a positive action, to think you just made yourself physically, mentally, and (in some cases if you're like me and think about stuff while you run) spiritually stronger. You experience so many sites and things most people will never see, and those memories, those sites, sounds, and even smells will be with you forever. You sweat out a bunch of gross stuff and now you get to come home and wash it all off. You're skin takes on this healthy glow that only few things in life can give you. And on those days, those special days that come about once a year, when you go out and you actually want to run. When you think you're feet could take you to the end of the world, those are the days you will live for. Personally those have only happened 3 or 4 times in my life but I am so thankful that I run everyday, even when I hate the thought of lacing up my shoes and setting a foot out my front door. Those moments that I get then, are the moments that give me chills, make me think that I could conquer the world and do whatever God has in store for me. Those are the moments, the days, that I dream about, when I actually do something I want to do and enjoy it wholeheartedly. That, that is why I run.

Nothing? Anything?

What do you do when you can't express the things you want to say? Do you just not worry about it and let life take you where it will? Do you lock it up inside to never be heard? I understand that letting it out someway or another will make you feel better but when you have so much to say, what do you do? How? When? Where? When your mind starts racing a thousand different directions and all you can do is stand there? You feel like your being pulled apart and you don't know which way to run? Will yelling help? Do you think you could cover it up with another though? When you are completely and utterly speechless? Your world feels empty and boring? Its decaying from within you? Why you? Why me? Why now? Why this?

When this happens to me, I know God and I are going to have a very long talk. About what you say? Everything. Nothing will be left out. Every corner swept clean and every muddy spot washed away. Most of the time this happens almost everyday. So many questions and I can't even begin to make sense of them all. But...what do I know...I'm just at a loss for words.

Unexpected

My mom always said, "A trip to the hospital is not in the schedule." Well, yesterday it was. I've only been to the hospital, for me personally, once before and that was some 16 years ago when I was born, so going there was very foreign to me. Considering how active I am and what sports I do, you'd think it would be a annual event, but fortunately God granted me the wonderful gift of NOT being accident prone. Through the people I called to tell them about this unfortunate happening I received a wide variety of comments from "Ouch, I'm sorry," to "Can you sue anybody?" Which gave me the warm feeling of being cared for by many people.

It was a minor accident really. Something I would have never gone to the hospital for without the prodding of a few friends and then my mom coming home and giving the final say of "Yup, you're gonna need stitches." Anyway, I was working with my dad and sister at a rental house we've been fixing up (the same one I spent days painting) and the first day we were there a good sized mirror hung in the dining room. We were just going to leave it there, but it didn't have the same idea. While I was outside, and my two sisters were in other rooms no where near the mirror, it suddenly fell from the wall and shattered into many pieces. So we called our dad and he told us to find and empty box and stick the larger pieces in it and vacuum up the rest. When all was said and done we stuck the box outside so no one would run into it.

Once again the mirror didn't like that idea and somehow ended back inside the house, in a corner with the rest of the trash. Nothing was thought of the box until yesterday when I was told that all the trash was needed to go outside for the trash man to come pick up. I told my dad that I was not about to pick up the box that held the broken mirror, and that that was a job for him. He agreed and I began the process of taking out the trash. Being me I always play this game with myself to try to get everything out in one load so I began grabbing things and pilling them in my arms. When I figured I had as much as I could, I couldn't see anything in front of me and just to cut to the chase, I walked right into the box, into a large piece of broken mirror.

It didn't hurt at all, not even when I cleaned it out with peroxide and alcohol, so that was the main reason why I didn't think it was that bad. My dad wouldn't look at it because he hates blood and wounds like this, so thankfully my sister helped me squish the gash together so I could put a band-aid on it. Never having hurt myself this badly before I thought it looked kinda cool, but I couldn't get anyone else to agree with me.

Well, when we finally got to the hospital some 6 hours after "the accident," and they took the band-aid off to look at it, the skin around the gash was beginning to turn blue and die so then I decided it was probably a good thing that we went to the E.R. As I sat there, for a long time, I was looking at the people around me and wondering what issues they were having that caused them to come here was well. They looked normal, they acted normal, none of them had bandages on their arms or legs like I did so it was hard to tell why they were there. They laughed and talked like there wasn't a care in the world. I took that as a good sign because that meant less people were seriously hurt. When I was finally called back to a room, we figured it would be another long wait so we turned on the T.V. and flipped through the channels until we found Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I began to think that some of the people in this hospital were waiting to find their "golden ticket", the good news that they are cured or can finally go home. Again I thanked the Lord that I had my own special "golden ticket," a ticket into Heaven and that if something terrible had really happened that day, that I would be O.K.

When the Resident Assistant finally came in to sew me up he said that I would only need 3 or 4 stitches so that solidified my idea of not getting shots to numb my leg up. It didn't really hurt and I knew I had a high tolerance of pain so I just told him to go ahead. The way I see it, people a long time ago didn't have shots to numb them, and in fact, with accidents like these they probably wouldn't even get stitches so he just went ahead.

Its an odd feeling to see a huge needle being pushed through your leg, in and out, in and out and watching the string pull the edges of my skin back together. It didn't really hurt, but what pain I did feel I figured was punishment for not watching where I was going. So as a conclusion and the moral of my story, watch where you're going or you might run into something quite unexpected.

Painting

I've been painting a house for awhile and when you paint it gives you a tremendous amount of time to think. I noticed that painting can be very similar to life. Most people paint to cover up scuff marks or they feel like a change. The old paint goes away and a bright new color goes up. Yet the old color still lingers in your mind. You can remember what it looks like and where most of the marks were, but to everybody else, it looks brand new. In life it can be somewhat the same, something happens to you that you don't like or wish to think about and you build a brick wall around yourself or paint over those things so you look brand new. Nobody can see it on the outside, but to you, you remember everything like it was the day it happened.

Every time something happens a new coat goes up, until coat after coat and layer after layer build up and there is nothing else you can do to make it look better again. Sometimes things get gouge marks and you need to replace them but the rest of you is still hurting. When that happens in painting, you can scrape away the layers of paint until you're back to the drywall you first started out with. You maybe even take the wall down and rebuild it. But who is there to pick at the painting that encompasses us, who is there to tear it down until the real us shows through again?

God is.

Sometimes He sends others who come and break through the wall and help us chip away at the hurt and pain. Its an amazing feeling to see it crumble to the ground before our very eyes. Sometimes He, The Painter, comes and destroys our old self and builds us new. Whatever it may be, you can be sure He is there, starting that tearing down process, so you may be brand new once again.

Changing Lifestyles

Apparently its time for a lifestyle change so the first step toward my new life was creating this site. Honestly I extremely dislike computers so creating this was a big step for me, and my dislike for computers is the basis for my change. With what the world is becoming I won't be able to survive if I don't learn to like them and understand them soon.

But an even bigger step will be to see if I can keep up with writing a blog everyday, lets just call it a mid-year resolution. And we all know how long those last...

I'll try to make it interesting but with school, sports, and work dominating my life I don't have much time for anything or anyone so you can imagine the excitement I receive during a normal day. So enjoy!