when your own thoughts are typed out more eloquently through someone else's fingers...

This is what you get: (stolen from the blog of the awesome James Pierce ). I have been sorting through similar thoughts and feelings, but I never sat down to meditate upon them or put them into words, so they inevitably kept getting pushed down. I soaked in the frustrations from the events surrounding my last months in Orange County, as well as the physical pain of my early days here, and could not see anything else clearly. It is refreshing to read this and to come up for air.

I feel like this is just the beginning. The precursor to what is going to turn out to be the grandest of all adventures. And I'm okay with that, I always have been. It's just that I'm beginning, after being in a whole new place for the past two weeks, to realize that this is it. It's not the warm-up, it's not the stretches, it's game time. I can't be living as if this were just one more step before life truly begins. In a way that's how it's been. Ever since graduating college really.

In college it was simpler though. I had classes I needed to pass, and so that made the wondering how each day was supposed to pan out much easier. In those classes were people who lived in the dorm I was living in, ate in the caf I was eating in, and played the same intramural sports I was playing. Life and relationships just happened. There was always someone you could find who shared a common like or dislike, and as a result you became friends.

Video games kept us awake through ungodly hours of the night, late term papers had the same effect, and at times conversations in the prayer room lasted way too long. Did anyone ever actually pray in there? Maybe that's why they took it away. In any case, strong friendships were forged through these times, as well as broken I'm sure, but not as often.

Four years have passed since then though. Each of us having lived over a thousand days, over thirty-five thousand hours. At first we stayed close to the city we graduated in. Our friendships were more important than our living arrangements. But as time passed, and the realization that we needed to get our lives in order, we spread out. Cheaper housing was available anywhere over five hundred miles away. Jobs and families had stronger bonds than our desires to stay nearby to one another.

Maybe we finally started realizing that we needed to live our own lives. We couldn't live vicariously through each other, no matter how hard we tried. And maybe the only way we thought this possible was to move away from the friends we loved, the relationships we built over the past eight years. The closest "friend" I have from college lives 215 miles away, and we haven't even truly spoken since we graduated. The next closest is 900 miles away, and I don't even want to know what mileage category the others fall into.

I suppose what I'm saying is that we're now all out on our own. True life has hit us and we've decided to grab it by the horns and hope the ride ends somewhere enjoyable. We're ready to be held responsible for our actions, we're ready to build more relationships that will last longer than forever. We're ready to dig in our toes and our heels and plant ourselves in the soil that has been eagerly awaiting our arrival since birth.

Where will our roots go though? Will they only linger among the topsoil and weeds that have no nourishment and only sporadic water? Or will they penetrate deeply into the firmament that longs to be tilled its entire life? It's entirely up to us, but as I said in the beginning I feel like this is the time to do it. It's not up to us to worry about where we will find ourselves tomorrow or next year. It's not up to us to try and change the seasons in our lives or force change that might not be ready to happen.

Life, as complicated as it may be, is meant to be lived.
But not haphazardly, or lazily.
No.
Wholeheartedly.
Passionately.
Vigorously.
Excitedly.

Take today, for all it's worth, and live the best way you know how. Just try it. I dare you.

-James P.