Eyes

Have you ever been haunted by a song? Or changed? Or anything? No, of course you haven’t. You’re not weird like me. But if you were, maybe you could relate. I guess I’ll have to explain it to you.

I never realized how many people there are around me. I mean, I have, but I never really “got” it. Think about your life for a second. You think it’s complicated, right? I think mine is. Sometimes, it’s too complicated. Okay, good, now that you’re thinking about that, think about this: How much of that “web of life” is made of other people? Quite a bit, I’m guessing. Everything you do in your life, it’s linked by people. Everyone you know is, obviously, a person. You have strong relationships, weak ones, good ones, bad ones, new ones, old ones, cherished ones, hated ones, hopeful ones, ones that will never be, ones you wish could be, ones that you’re just learning about, ones just being created…the list goes on. That’s your web. Like I said, it’s complicated, right?

Consider this: every one of those people has a web just as complicated as yours. And they know people who know people. There are circumstances in their life that you are a part of, and there are ones you are not, just as they aren’t a part of every aspect of your life. There’re things you keep hidden from them, things they keep hidden from you, things others keep hidden from both of you, and things left unspoken. Those complicated webs just got ten times more complex.

I’d been thinking about this for weeks. There are all these problems that people have that you’ll never know about. There’re a thousand reasons why a person is who he or she is. There’s no way you’ll ever know them all. Every action you make, every action they make, it’s made for a reason. Some people think that the future is predestined and set in stone. I disagree. The future is the choices we make every single moment, every second, every fraction of a second. There is nothing that we do that doesn’t affect our future. I’m not the kind of person who believes God has been limited by one future. If God is as powerful as we claim, should he not see all possible outcomes of all possible choices at all possible times? Just because the choices we make determine the future does not mean that God is blind to the future. If all outcomes are known to Him, he is never caught off guard.

But that’s getting away from my point, although it relates. My point is that there are all these people around us going a thousand different directions every day, including us. We don’t share a reality…instead, each one of our realities is intertwined without us even realizing it. We may never know what is really going on in a person’s life. All we see is what they do, what they say, what we think they are. Most of the time, we don’t even care about all the things that drive them to be who they are. Everyone has a weight slung around their neck. Sometimes we see it, sometimes we don’t. We’re blinded by ourselves and our narrow realities.

So, as I said, I had been thinking about this for a while, wondering what is behind every glance, every smile, every frown, every laugh, every expression that you can’t tell if it’s real or not. And then I heard this song that was exactly what I’d been thinking and it perfectly captured all those thoughts. It’s called “Give Me Your Eyes” by Brandon Heath. The first verse goes like this:

Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black top
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breathe in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere,
Why have I never cared?

Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s like someone hit a pause button and suddenly I’m aware of all the layers to everything happening around me. Why haven’t I ever cared about all these things around me?

Then I heard the next lines of the song:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I’ve been missing
Give me your love for humanity.

Can you imagine what it would be like to see through other people? Not like (ew) X-Ray vision, but to see all their struggles and problems and insecurities and needs. It would be too much to take in. It’d be like squeezing a lifetime’s worth of a friendship into a fraction of a second. It would overload you. You couldn’t take it all in. It’d be like standing in front of a dam just as it burst and a wall of water washed you away. I don’t know why, but I find that incredibly humbling. I finally realize, no matter how well you really know a person, you don’t know them.

I was talking to a friend. I’m not even sure what I was doing. I know what—at some level—I should do, but I don’t want to and can’t. I was seeing it from my view, not hers. Although, I think, in all honesty, she knows what I should do. But apparently she doesn’t want to either. I was afraid of messing up a relationship, of my web getting tangled in someone else’s. I was prepared to…sacrifice a friendship to keep from ruining a relationship.

But my friend told me something that gave me “eyes” for a second. After I told her I would give up a friendship for her relationship she told me, “Well, if one were ruined, I’d prefer it if you left me the other.” Wow. That was all I could say. That made so much sense. And, yeah, I don’t completely get it. No one does or ever will.

But I think, maybe, just maybe, we see shadows of what God sees through his eyes. I have a new…genuine caring for, well, everyone. Every moment I think I know who they are and what they are, I’m reminded that I really don’t. That’s a very humbling thought. There’s real hurt out there, and most of that hurt will go unrecognized by everyone but the person it’s happening to...and to God’s eyes.

If you want to hear the song, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTsYAZvHsEQ

Things on the Mind

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. And it’s given me a lot of things to say with no one to say them to, and a sense of not being sure how to say them anyway. A long time ago (I think two years still counts as a long time ago), a friend told me they liked me a certain way…you know, more than a friend. But see, here’s the thing: I didn’t really know them all that well at the time. We’d just started to hang out, just started to get to know each other. I’d been down that road a thousand times and 999 of those times, the person is friendly for a few weeks, maybe months, in some exceptional cases, even longer, but eventually, they just sort of disappear out of my life. And honestly, that’s how I thought this would be. Figures that this would turn out to be one out of a thousand cases that didn’t work that way.

But that’s getting a bit ahead of myself. Whoever is reading this, if anyone is reading this, I don’t know how long it will be. But I’ve needed to get it out somewhere for a while now. You can think it’s stupid; I do most of the time, but it still is there, no matter how I feel about it.

Anyway, like I said, this new friend liked me…a lot more than I thought she could, or would, or would ever want to. I was having a hard time to believe it, because see, I hadn’t done anything for her or done anything that would make me stand out from anyone else. I was just…really…myself around her, and for once, that was good enough for someone. It was a good feeling, a really good feeling. She wanted a relationship, and for a number of reasons I wasn’t sure of and am still not sure of, I said no.

I didn’t give her the explanation she deserved because, well, I didn’t even know why I said no. Maybe I was listening to people around me too much.

You know, come to think of it, that was a fun time. It really was. There was a lot less fighting between some people then. Funny. The one person who told me to go for it is now the one person who doesn’t want anything to do with my friend.

Sorry. I was saying that I was listening to people. People told me it wasn’t a good idea. And…well…yeah, how was I supposed to know? I was just starting to know the person, right? I can’t say that I really “knew” her. So, like I said already, I said no and gave a half-hearted (if that) explanation as to why I didn’t want a relationship.

Stupid. I knew why. I wasn’t good enough. That’s how I felt. I wasn’t good enough to be there for her. I wasn’t…outgoing enough to do all the things that a partner is supposed to do, or what I thought a partner was supposed to do. I couldn’t see myself as being enough for her. It wasn’t what people were saying or anything she said. It was me. It was me not doubting myself and thinking that she could do so much better than a guy like me. I just didn’t want to be boring, which is exactly what I thought I’d be. But how do you explain these things to someone? How can you say “Don’t think about me, you’ll just be disappointed” without sounding like a self-pitying jerk?

But, and this is the crazy thing, after all that, after side-stepping and not giving her a full explanation why I said no (and I wouldn’t tell her, incidentally, until two years later), after flip flopping back and forth on things—she still wanted to be friends. I really couldn’t believe it. I thought she would be mad. She should have been. But she wasn’t. And we stayed friends, and I’m so glad we did.

So we kept in touch, talked, got to know each other better, and all that wonderful stuff. The next year, she got a boyfriend. I felt good about it. It meant that she wasn’t upset about me being such a jerk toward her. She was happy and we were still friends.

Then things started to change. I guess I should mention that I was friends with her boyfriend. Or thought I was. It turns out he doesn’t like me. At all. When I’ve seen him lately, he hasn’t even responded to a “Hi there.” But let’s not get ahead of ourselves again. What was happening was, the guy, her boyfriend, he didn’t like that she was friends with me. She never really told me how much he didn’t like it until a few days ago. She should have stopped talking to me. But she didn’t. She said I meant to much as a friend to her. And, once again, I was a little amazed that anyone would want to be my friend that much.

Another year passed, and that brings us to now. Her boyfriend is graduated, they still love each other, but she still talks to me, even though she’s not supposed to. And this year…this year…she’s my best friend. I don’t know what I do without her. School would be a lot more boring and a lot lonelier, I suppose. I never really had someone who really “got” me like she does. It’s pretty awesome. Sounds great right?

Well…here we go again. Her boyfriend, the graduated one, he still thinks she isn’t talking to me at all. She knows she’s not supposed to. But she does. I just don’t get it. We tried to stop talking once…and that lasted a week. I never really got how big of a deal it was that she wasn’t supposed to talk to me until a few days ago.

It turns out, if you boyfriend did know she was talking to me, he’d break up with her. Break up with her. Can you believe that? I don’t want to put that weight on her. I told her that. But she wants to be my friend anyway. I told her not to worry about. She still wants to be my friend. It’s…just incredible.

Why would she do that for me? I don’t want to hurt her. But…it doesn’t seem to matter to her. What if someone would tell her boyfriend that we talk and hang out at school? I don’t want to think about it.

And now…now I don’t know what to do. I should tell her that I can’t keep talking to her…that I shouldn’t make her be, basically, lying to her boyfriend. That’s wrong. Extremely wrong. But could I do that? And more importantly, do I want to do that?

No. No I don’t.

Always do something when you say you're going to...

Ugh...okay, this was totally something a friend asked me to do while we were joking around doing the dumb stuff we call conversation. But, all joking aside, I...I really don't know what I'd do without that friend. So they told me to write a poem (the emo thing to do, you see), just for laughs? Just for kicks? I don't know, but writing does usually help me feel better about whatever. So technically, this is for the friend, but, er, untechnically, it's for me too.

ANSWERS

An answer is like a weight falling from the sky.
It never looks where it’s going,
Doesn’t matter where it’s been,
It’s your weight now, and that’s what counts.
Slowed by two failing arms,
Hindered but not stopped.
It presses, harder, harder.
Your heels dig deep into the earth,
An inch down, now two.
You grind your teeth,
You grimace with determination,
Each heartbeat is a canon,
Fleeting cries of lost victory.
Breathing becomes a chore.
The air is sand and dirt and gravel.
Your eyes are darkening,
Light is choked by poisonous night.
Your footing is lost and at last the weight falls,
And in a passing thought,
You wonder why it takes so long.
Until you see a hand by yours,
An arm reaching alongside you,
And the face of friend,
Holding your weight,
And telling you to breathe.

I am by no means a poet. Short stories, essays, obnoxiously long rants generally about nothing important...I can do that. But poems have never been my strength. So, perhaps you got a chuckle out of it, and if you did, good for you. You're a healthier person for it. Now get out of here.