Big In Oh Four

What a year!
Reflection at this level deserves at least a blog entry. Hopefully people read it. I am trying to remember the big events in my life in the last year. I am trying to remember because time has a way of ebbing the distinct truth and blurring it into perspective.

I remember starting the year at my little brother's house in Pontiac. It was a New Year's Eve Party. It had been a long December and there was reason to believe that maybe this year would be better than the last....or so the Counting Crows had led me to believe.

I had a lot to look forward to. I never realized how much I would see this year.
I never realized that in only four weeks I would see Janet Jackson's bejeweled nipple. Nothing can prepare you for that at halftime.

I never realized that I would move out on my own. I never realized that I hated dogs so much.

I never realized that being alone would be such a miserable experience for me.

I was taking drugs at the beginning of this year. Not hallucinagenic drugs, but I was taking Stratera, a time-released version of Ritalin. My thinking had never been clearer. But I also never realized that thinking so clearly would drive me crazy.

I never realized that once I was single that so many people would be interested in me. I never realized that having all of these people interested in me would be so meaningless.

I never thought that my Daughter's starting school would be such a huge event. I never thought about that.

I am glad that I finally got a cell phone. I am glad that I have been on a few dates.

I am glad for the diverse experiences I've had this year. I never realized that I would find a bar where I could get 48 ounces of GUINNESS for $1.50. I never realized I would complain when said bar would raise the price to $2.00 in the last week of the year that I would find myself complaining.

In the last year I developed a love for the art of Karaoke and Thai food. I have made so many new friends from new cultures and new experiences and backgrounds. It has been an exciting year.

I was hoping at the beginning of this year that I would miss Jason, my brother less. I was disappointed to discover myself missing him more.

I found myself enrolling in school, enrolling in sins, and enrolling in revival.

I found myself finally getting what the Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning was about. I get it.

I found myself reading Fyodor Dostoyevski and discovering the dark abyss that is the human heart and what it is capable of commmitting at any point. I found myself reading and reading in fear.

I found that the New U2 Cd was inspiring, that I was not disappointed in Bono's spiritual rediscovery. I agree with him when he says, "Yahweh, Yahweh, always pain before a child is born...Yahweh, Yahweh, always dark before the dawn."

I sit now on New Year's Eve, ready to begin a new year with a new experience, with a new vitality.

I am excited. I am ready to move. I am ready to pick myself up off the floor. I am ready move like today never happened before. Seriously.

Call me. Write me. Page me. Brandon is ready to move. He wants this. Happy new year. May 2005 be a year of vitality, success, prosperity, life and change.