Something like Love?

Maybe I'm a romantic. I'm in love with the idea of love. All people are I assume. At least all people my age are. I assume. Some people I suppose grow out of it, and I'm too young to know if it's caused by giving all of your love away to people who never give you any back or by keeping all of your love to yourself until it ferments. I certainly don't plan on doing either, but I'm sure nobody plans on falling out of love with love. That's just one of those crazy things life backhands you with. Some people see their parents fight endlessly and determine that only a perfect being is worthy of their love. Other people see people suffer alone needlessly and determine that so long as they are able they will not permit anyone life gives them to suffer alone. The difficult thing is that love only means giving someone the opportunity to hurt you with the knowledge that some day they will. I don't understand why we need that. It's infuriating, but sometimes lovely.

Love since being home from my mission for seven months is elusive.
This girl came up to me today. I think she likes me because I barely know her, but she has come up to me twice and intentionally started a conversion with me. When we talk she laughs too loud at the things I say that are supposed to be funny but aren't.

I'm listening to the old songs. I never thought I could miss anything so painfully as I miss my mission. I didn't miss it for a long time and then one day (I can remember it perfectly) it hit me harder than probably anything has ever hit anyone and from that point on I have spent my time pretending I don't miss my mission. But then I go and listen to the old songs and it all comes back. Each apartment I lived in had a distinct feel to it. If I close my eyes and listen I can feel it strong enough that I almost believe I am back. It's funny that the feeling of each apartment is one of the only things I can hold on to. In my second area I bought this soap. It was the same soap I had had when I lived with Shaley and Ashlin and Jessica, vanilla and black raspberry. When I washed with that soap it smelled like I was back at college and the feeling of that apartment came back. I will never be content with what I've been given. I don't think I will ever stop mission my mission. But I think this is better than not missing it. I really do.

Being in love is both a blessing and a curse. I know from experience. Or at least I tell myself I do. I have yet to replicate that feeling of seeing her walk into a room. Maybe that is holding me back. Maybe I already gave all my love to someone and she didn't give me anything back. I hate missing things. I hate that my whole life will be spent moving on from the things I love.

I forgot what my point was supposed to be.

Too much

So I don't actually post anymore. This isn't a post.

Want to hear something sad? The other day on facebook my roommate was all: Who wants to watch the new Veronica Mars movie with me??? and I didn't say anything because I thought he would watch it long before I got back from spring breaking. Well I just got back and he is in his room watching Veronica Mars. Alone. I guess he didn't get any takers. And it's not like I can just walk into his room and watch it with him. This house seems to alienate people. Like I never talk to my roommates. I mostly spend time in my room alone. And I never invite anyone over because this house is a total disaster. Like it is disgustingly unclean. I've spent some time trying to clean things up, but unless everyone participates it is just a practice in futility. I made cupcakes last week for my coworkers and simply felt awful. If they could see my kitchen I'm not sure they would be willing to eat anything that was cooked in it. Still I could invite people over and hang out in my room. I have my own TV; but this house. I tell people that I don't invite them over because my roommates are weird, but that isn't entirely true. There is just something about this house. Scratch that; there is something about the people in this house. The way we interact is like unhealthy. We all hide away and honestly I never know if anyone is home other than me. (Not really true. When people watch movies or listen to music you can hear it all through the thin walls.) Anyway the point is this house is dirty and my roommates aren't exactly kosher and I am kind of ashamed.

For some reason, finding this house online seemed like a God-sent miracle. I was for reals out of options and then BAM this house showed up, and it turned out being nothing like I thought it was going to be. Somehow that feels like my fault. I made the decision to live here before ever checking out the house (I was desperate, ok?) and so it is my fault that I ended up somewhere unclean and forever away from campus. And with loner roommates. The worst part is that I feel like I deserve exactly what I've gotten, and showing my house to other people would only expose them to the fact that I am a horrible person and don't deserve to live with goody-two-shoe RMs where pictures of the temple decorate the walls.

This doesn't make any sense, but it feels good to write. Half the time when I write I don't say what I really believe. The other half of the time I don't know what I really believe.

My roommate texted me while I was gone for the break and asked when I was going to get back. At the time I thought he wanted to see how long he could throw crazy parties until Marvin Mormon came back to spoil the fun. Now I think he may have just wanted to watch Veronica Mars with me...

My actual greatest fear

My greatest fear is totally entropy. I blame Isaac Asimov because I read his short story called The Last Question a few years ago and it haunted and fascinated me. If you read the story you will have a good idea of what I am talking about, but to be brief, entropy is the idea that the universe will degenerate into a state of chaos. Think about it this way: You buy a candy bar at the convenience store. You throw the wrapper away and eat the candy bar. What has happened to the components of what you purchased? The wrapper is in some trash can and the chocolate is being digested in your body.

THEN what happens to the components? Part of the candy is taken into your system while other parts of it are excreted as waste and the wrapper winds up in an unknown landfill.

THEN what happens to the contents? The nutrients are used as energy in your body. The waste is processed in a treatment plant and sent out into the environment again. The wrapper rots.

THEN what happens? Does part of the water evaporate and become a raincloud that ends a drought in Texas? Does it water a field?  Is the wrapper picked up by the wind? Burned? And what about you? are you able to use all the energy? and for what? Is there any possible way to bring all the parts of that candy bar back together? No. It went from being so organized and simple to being spread out into millions of pieces over who-knows-how-many miles. And think about all of the millions of candy bars that have been purchased. But why is that scary?

Things degenerate. That is the nature of EVERYTHING. The universe included. Asimov took it on a major scale to remind us that everything in finite. Now look at it this way: What happens to a graduating class? Some move away to go to school. Some stay and work at the fast food joint for years. Some end up in jail. Some die. A group that was once organized and got together every day at your high school becomes- after only a few years- impossible to reassemble. And in 100 years how much of them will even be remembered?

On my mission I was able to see the way entropy destroys things. I was completely removed from my life for two years and when I came back everything had drifted apart. Everybody that I cared about wasn't accessible. Of course over time people move out of your life, but to see it so sudden like that really scared me. I don't know of a single thing that could possibly bring back all of the people I care about even though we used to get together all the time. On my mission we once had an activity that brought together most of the missionaries in my mission. As I watched them all interact I felt like crying and I had no idea why, but now I recognize that for a small instant and in a small way entropy has been reversed.

Asimov equates the reversal of entropy to the power of God. If I could put a name to God's power it would be that. And what is amazing is that we have a little bit of that divinity within us. If you take a shirt out of your closet you can put it back. If you take out all of the clothes in your closet you could put them all back in the same order. That might seem really simple and not cool, but it I the same principle that would enable you to put together a body that has begun to decompose. One of the reasons I believe in God is because I believe that there is an antidote to entropy. All of my relationships are being destroyed by entropy. So much so that I am terrified of making new emotional connections, but I know that there is one relationship that entropy can't touch, and that is the family because God has given the sealing power to man and promised that " whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt 18:18). True family units might not always be tight here on earth, but God can fix that.

Someday I think I might write a story about entropy. It will start out very linear and make perfect sense and then it will evolve and spread out and follow several different plotlines and characters and eventually it will be impossible to follow and become incomprehensive babbling. It's funny that they things we want to figure out are the things we spend our time on. At least that is my experience. I still don't have a hold on entropy, but God does, and I trust Him with it.

(To be really technical for the Physics Major that is going to come across this post I want to put a disclaimer that I recognize that I am using the term entropy incorrectly, but I don't have any other word for the phenomenon.)

Prodigal

He got home late. Really late Terrence realized as he looked at the microwave clock. He only had 4 hours until the morning shift. He wasn’t tired though. Not yet. He could stay up the rest of the night if he wanted to. But it would hit him, oh, three hours into his shift at the warehouse, and he couldn’t take another day like that. Not another one. He looked into the fridge. He wasn’t hungry, but he grabbed a thing of ice cream and set it down on the table anyway. He tried to remember when was the last time he had cleaned the table. Weeks ago probably. Pipes, papers, cereal bowls, and now a carton of ice cream. He hadn’t meant to be at Glory’s all night. He had told her that he had the early shift at the warehouse. Sometimes he wondered if she heard a single thing he said.

He didn’t taste the ice cream, didn’t know what flavor it was, but he felt it, cold, going down his throat spoonful after spoonful. He thought about a time not that long ago when his dad would take him to the zoo. He loved to watch the tigers. The power in those beasts behind the bars was miraculous to a boy his age. If he could have been anything in the whole world it would be a zookeeper. He figured he would just go out and buy a tiger and get started as soon as he could. Growing up hadn’t been simple though. His dreams didn’t hold up nearly so well after twenty years of wearing down, wearing down. He could have come up with any number of other things to do with his life, but he didn’t have any dreams anymore. Maybe that’s why he was in a rundown apartment on the wrong side of the tracks running with a girl who had a reputation for destroying decent men and smoking who-knows-what. Glory had stuck something in his lipstonight and he had puffed on it till it was dry. Maybe that’s how she got him into bed. He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember much of the last coupla months.

He remembered meeting Glory. She had drug him into some bar and convinced him to buy her drinks. He hadn’t wanted much to do with her, but she gave him attention when nobody else would and he guessed that tonight he found out why. It wasn’t at all like everybody makes it look. He felt like the world had been putting on some kind of act his whole life and now the curtain had been torn away and there wasn’t really anything behind it worth mentioning. Maybe the second time. Maybe the third time. Maybe eventually there isn’t any shame in the thing and it starts to mean something.

He looked outside and saw men going around gouging each other’s eyes out and now he could join their ranks. He squared up his twenty years of shoulders and wondered if sheer determination could get him out of the rest of his life unscathed. He wondered if anybody ever actually reached their dreams before real life set in and spoiled everything. He wondered briefly if Glory had ever wanted to be a zookeeper, but he couldn’t stand the thought.

He decided to take a shower. He felt like throwing up or crying or something, but he didn’t. He just washed his hair and let the hot water run over him as if it could wash away all the years that he was caked in. He toweled off and realized he didn’t know what clothes he wanted to put on. Three hours until he had to go to work. Was it worth trying to sleep? He thought about his father. What would he think to see his son like this?

Terrence made a decision, put on one of his nicer shirts and a pair of jeans. He wasn’t going to sleep and he wasn’t going to work and he wasn’t ever going to come back to this piece-of-crap apartment. He locked the door behind him and walked. Moving on. Again. Maybe this time for good. He closed his eyes and thought that there wasn’t a single person in the world who loved him.

Wing Night

It had never worked out before. But whatever, like that's about to stop us. We were in the usual spots. Usual mood. Typical work day. Break time always seemed so short.

"At least we have something to do with our day." said Marissa. "When I get home I basically sit on the couch until its time to go to sleep. I'm pretty sure that's what my whole day would be like without this job."

We all give non-comittal half-nods. It's funny how we all act super tired at work. It's not like just standing in one spot is all that draining. Plus we get special mats to stand on. Yipee. Mostly we ast tired during break. Most of work is actually made up of everyone waiting for the next break. When you're packing cucumbers you can't help but think about when you can stop. We keep coming back to work though. We all need the money.

"Lets do things," said Marissa. We waited. Somehow we all knew that this wasn't all. Sure enough: "You know, like watching movies together or going out to eat. Give us something to look forward to after work." The nods are slightly more than non-commital, but I'm really catching on here.

There are only a handful of us here, the college students getting some money for education between semesters. Most people here are as far as they will ever get, ya know? They're kinda stuck for life. 'Motivation to go to college' as my dad tells me. Anyway, we kind of stick together, us educated kids. Maybe because we are all the same age. We all sit at the same table at break and eat. We don't really talk. I mean little stuff, but nothing worth mentioning. Except I guess this conversation.

"Yes," I said. "Tonight is wing night at Native New Yorker. Let's do that" It seemed like people from our work group were going to wing night practically every week, so I figured that everyone would jump on the idea, but
"I have an online class," Alisha announced right away. Scott was busy, Jake wasn't at work that day, but Jared was game. Marissa shot me a look. "I'll text people" I said.

The responses were mixed, but we got at least three more yeses. That was enough. Wing night was on.

4:30- work ended, and of course we practiacally crawl out the door, we're all so tired. I was so excited. "Wing Night! Seven o'clock" I shouted through the front door when I got home. Why hadn't I ever gone to wing night before with my co-workers?  Something always came up, I guess. This was going to be the best.
Bam. My phone buzzes. Text from Marissa- Hey I can't give you a ride tonight. We are having an unexpected family visit tonight. I'm not going.

Haha. That's what I said back. Didn't mean it. So I shot out a text to the 'yeses' to see if anyone can give me a ride. I was real subtle. I said 'Who is still going to wing night? We are taking a headcount.'
emily- sorry can't make it after all
hailey- got called in to work. sorry
alyssa- nah I can't come. Thanks though
delsy-
delsy didn't actually text me back.

Ha. cause this had never happened before. Wing night always worked out perfectly for everyone. Just not me. I could never seem to make it. Other than that though.
So, what? No wing night. I had planned something and it flopped. I wasn't to wing night after all.
I texted Marissa- The whole world doesn't want me to go to wing night.
her reply- Haha. We'll plan better next time.

I wanted to tell her not to bother, but I just couldn't. It wasn't just the lack of planning. Things worked out anyway, sometimes. Whatever, wing night had never worked out before.

People tried to comfort me, but it's not like I was all that upset. I had just acted really excited for it. Lance vowed we would go next week. I wanted to tell him not to bother.

Mom was setting to places at the table. Her and Lance. They were leaving early for a hair appointment.
Lance- "unless I am working that day"
Dad- "honey don't you think we should eat as a family.
Mom- Lance and I are leaving here in about two minutes. We are already late.
Lance- I could just trade with some one I guess
Dad- We can get everone here and ready to eat. We need to eat as a family
Mom- (on the phone)
Lance- I'm writing it on the calender
Dad- Kids come to the kitchen! It's time for dinner.
Mom- (walks away from the kitchen. still on the phone)
Lance- (staring at his food)
Dad- the boys are taking the dog on a walk, but if Mom and Lance are going to start eating we might as well get everone who is around together to eat.
Mom- (snaps phone shut) Lance lets go
Lance & Mom- leave
I went upstairs. Dinner didn't seem to be coming anytime soon

Swimming

In situations like this, Charles had the habit of pretending the room was filling up with water. It seemed to seep through the floor, collecting in puddles among the white tiles.  It rained from the ceiling and spurted through the cracks of the walls steadily. The magazines in loose piles on the table grew damp as water streamed out of their pages. He did nothing; it was like a game, trying to act normal in such unusual circumstances. Geysers erupted out of the seats of the empty chairs spraying water on everything that was still dry. He had to remind himself to breathe normally and not look so tense. It wasn’t real; this water that splashed on one of his finer suits, and besides it was barely a few inches deep. Someone would take care of it before it became much trouble. He eyed the receptionist (whose fountain pen was acting like a hose) as she talked on the phone, (which was acting like a sprinkler); water was coming out of her mouth in foamy bursts.  His thoughts came in commands now: Close eyes, Deep breath, Tap fingers in agitation. Even then he could not block out the sound of water as it sprang into existence and landed on the linoleum floor. He could feel it climbing up his legs. Opening his eyes, Charles could see water cascading off the receptionist’s desk and the windows were now shooting gallons of water into the room. He found it funny that he had never come up with a source for the water. He looked down in time to watch the water swallow his lap. He wanted to shut his eyes, and cover his ears and scream, and it took time to regain control of himself. The urge returned again about the time the water hit his chest; about the time he could hear footsteps coming down the hall. Water was coming out of his own eyes now. When the doctor threw the doors open and came into the room it had the effect of breaking a dam. A great wall of water came at him, clawing at his lips, forcing itself down his throat. The taste was salty; bitter. There was no longer air. He could not contain himself. He was drowning. He sobbed and gasped as the doctor told him the news he has already guessed. Then the water consumed him.

People

I love people. You may not be able to tell this by being around me. In fact most people view me as cripplingly shy. Instead of shy i like to think of myself as an observer. Before i talk to almost anyone i like to observe who they are and what they are all about. And where i fit in in relationship to them. Then we can get going. Also i do not talk in group conversations. It just doesn't fly.

Even at my house sometimes i will just sit on the couch and watch the daily happenings. I love to just be around someone and feel their presence. I feel like i have a knack for feeling who people really are and enjoying them for who they are (and not just because of energy profiling ya'll).

You know who i LOVE? those people with the radiant, shining personalities. You know? As soon as one of these people walk in to a room it just lights up and, for me at least, suddenly its all about them. There is just this rich, warmth and light about the radiant people. I don't know if you get what i'm talking about. Its those people who can cheer you up on the worst days just by smiling at you. Its those people you miss the most when they are not around. Its those people you would give anything to hear laugh if you are feeling down. If one of these radiant people are talking i could just sit there and bask in it forever, you know? Probably not.

So i am probably going to have to marry someone with a radiant, warm personality like that, and let me tell you they are one in a million. But i love pretty much anybody that i have ever gotten to know. I just wish i could spend time with the people i love for pretty much ever. Not even talking or anything, just being there with 'em. There is something about being with a real person. Not on the phone, not on chat or via skype or text. We're talking legit people. I love 'em so much!!! <3