Ishmael

Apparently, my previous post has caused some problems. Apparently, some people have missed the point. If I may, I would like to clear up the confusion.

First, let’s give some background: a lot happened between “Summer!” and “Goodbye, My Love” (the post this is all about), and one of the things that happened can really only be described as that my girlfriend broke up with me (“A Glimpse” kinda hints at what was going on here). That’s not entirely accurate, and there’s a lost more to it, but you get the idea. Anyway, it’s been a rather rough thing to go through. It was a pretty serious relationship that I was 100% committed to. But that’s not what this post is about.

The point of this post is to explain the point of my previous post. Titled “Goodbye, My Love,” it was a love letter to Summer. Unfortunately, some people got the idea that, in Summer, I was talking about the girl I’d been in a relationship with, and in reading it that way, they were (I’d imagine – all I’ve heard is that people got the wrong idea.) quite surprised to read the bit that goes

“Memories of nights we spent together will stay with me forever. The feel of sweat of the sheets; the calming cool that a soft breath would bring.”

and were somewhat disturbed by it. I can understand that. I mean, that would be one heck of a steamy relationship. The only problem is… that’s not what I meant at all. It was a love letter to Summer, as in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Sweaty sheets and hot nights have a much different meaning if you read it that way. That was how I intended it.

I imagine that there are two core issues that people are taking with this post. The first is probably people thinking that we had a relationship of that nature and her family worrying about how this could hurt her reputation. The second thing I can see is her and her family possibly thinking that I might have done this with the purpose to hurt her reputation in order to get back at her. Like I said, the breakup as been pretty hard on me. But nothing (and I mean it, nothing) could be further from the truth. First of all, we strove in every way to keep our relationship as pure as possible. We tried our hardest to never even be alone together unless it just couldn’t be avoided, which was very rare. Second, I still love her. We’re even (last time I checked, anyway) trying to maintain a friendship through this. I know that we can’t be together anymore. I don’t understand it, I don’t completely agree with it, and I definitely don’t like it, but I don’t have to. I just know that this is how things are, everything we had together is gone. But I still love her in ways other than the romantic “I love you” way. She is an amazing, Godly woman who I respect greatly (that’s why I’m trying to keep her as a friend). And for the the record, she is probably one of the most pure girls I know. I would never do anything to hurt her or to smear her reputation. In fact, if anyone else cares to try, I’ll be one of the first in line to do some rather unpleasant things to them. But no, “Goodbye, My Love” was not about anything other than the season we call Summer.

If you couldn’t tell, yes, some of the feeling in “Goodbye, My Love” is 100% real. That’s part of why I wrote it that way. It gave me somewhere to let those feeling out. But this post was really started just for fun. The weather here went from hot and sunny and very Summer-like to stormy and rainy in about two days. Things cleared up and the weather was fine for a day before we woke up to a chill. Fall has fallen quite quickly (overnight, in fact), and I do have a love affair with Summer, so I thought the analogy of  waking up to find my lover gone was appropriate. When I started writing, I had no thoughts of anything other than that. The feelings are real, but only because I know a little bit about what the pain of loss a like that feels like.

Writing generally reflects the experiences of the writer, whether intentionally or not. And I promise, any references to her are unintentional. I am truly sorry for any confusion “Goodbye, My Love” caused. Hopefully this post has cleared things up.

Justin

Have you you ever felt like someone took your life and turned upside down? Well, that happened to me recently. I still haven’t worked through what happened all the way, and I’m not ready to write about it yet I don’t think, but I needed to get some stuff out. This post might seem pretty pointless and incredibly disorganized. Just call it a glimpse into my heart.

I don’t even know how to start this. I have a lot of praying to do. I’ve been seeking God for the past week, it’s pretty intense. Sleep definitely isn’t what it used to be. I’ve been staying up later that I have in a while. I’ve reconnected with a lot of really good friends. I think the thing that would give the best glimpse into what’s going on would be the music that’s been resonating with me lately. Everyday Sunday’s Wake Up! Wake Up! basically tells the story of my life right now, and some other songs fit my various moods. Mostly stuff by Relient K and Mae and Anberlin. Let It All Out by Relient K is a good one for helping me remember that things work out for the best. A Day Late by Anberlin is kinda an echo. Mae’s Someone Else’s Arms kinda describes the last few months leading up to this. Almost anything by Ivory makes me cry right now, especially Love Finds Love. It probably will for a while…

Go look at my last.fm stream and you’ll see what I’m listening to, and if you head over to blip.fm, you’ll get a bit of the story behind the songs too. Maybe I’ll eventually be ready to write about what’s going on and what led up to it. It could be a while though. Well see…

I hope that, if thing else, someone will read this and know that they’re not the only one going through some confusing stuff right now. And if you have a song or a thought you want to share, post them in a comment. I’d like to see them.

Well, it looks like I’m finally getting into the swing of things. I got a job as a lifeguard at the city pools here in Murfreesboro and I’ve been working there for almost a week now. It’s such a fun job.  Yesterday, there was a swim meet going on, we had a tornado break, and one of the guards was having a potluck with his water aerobics class and we got to eat some of the food. That kind of stuff is exactly why I love guarding. The people are always fun too, and being near a pool to swim laps during my breaks isn’t too bad either.

I also finally bought myself a laptop. It’s a pretty slick machine with a dual core 64 bit proessor and a 15.6 inch 16:9 screen. It rocks at graphics work and movies. The keyboard is taking some getting used though – but that’s mostly because I’m a terrible typer. When I type the way I’m used to, it nds up loong like ths… yeah.

I’ve also started working on a web/marketing project and maybe found a swim team to spend some time with for the summer. I’m pretty excited. All I need now is to get some subs for the week of cornerstone. I half of the days taken care of already, but that isn’t going to help unless I get the rest of the week off too. I can’t just pull a sick day or use some vacation time.

Now it’s time to go start dinner and get ready to go see about coaching swim practice and hopefully not fall asleep in the process. Wish me luck!

I finally did it… I graduated! I’m done with school until college starts. It’s kinda different not having schoolwork to do all the time. I’ve always been homeschooled, and it seems like I’ve always been either trying to catch up on or get ahead in something. Most of my summers had at least a half load of schoolwork that I was supposed to be doing. It’s been a long few years, especially the last 4. High school has been pretty intense.

Being homeschooled through high school makes some people look at you kinda funny. It’s almost like they’re thinking “you can do that?” Other times they come right out and ask you some of the oddest questions: “what do you do for sports?” “where do you get your diploma?” “how do you make any friends?” and others like that. The answers are pretty easy, although most people look at me in disbelief when I say “friends? I’ve got the most amazing friends ever! Graduation? of course, and there’s going to be a hundred students there. And no, we didn’t have prom in my garage.” It’s been so much fun

Looking back on it though, I learned some very important lessons during the last 12 years. Here’s a list of some that come to mind as the most useful:

1. Don’t forget about biology
2. When you’re studying, classical music can be just as distracting as anything else
3. Mom’s rules always triumph
4. When in doubt, don’t cite wikipedia
5. For most people, geometry is nothing more than a method for proving the obvious
6. Don’t write papers on obscure subjects
7. Facebook is an amazing place
8. “Gmail ate my homework” doesn’t work
9. Last.fm will play the most random songs when you’re trying to study
10. Taking physics, chemistry, algebra, biology, and geometry is not the most brilliant way to spend your senior year
11. Your life explodes in the second semester of your senior year
12. Graduation is one of the oddest things you will ever go through
13. Learning almost never happens on schedule
14. Don’t bother putting your name in your graduation cap, it’ll get lost anyway
15. Going to the mall doesn’t usually count as a study session
16. Friends are an absolute must
17. You’ll never have the time, so you may as well do it now
18. Taking a break when you still have work to do (procrastinating) isn’t as fun as actually being done
19. You can’t sing along to a song and read at the same time
20. Colleges should give you a degree or a scholarship for just figuring out how to apply

Anyway, I’m pretty excited about this new chapter in my life that’s going to be starting. But that’s a subject for a whole other post.

It’s getting more real. Seriously, college is coming. Last week, I went to the college for what they call “customs.” It’s like a cross between orientation  and registration and some other stuff. We were divided into groups by our major and got to meet the deans and advisers of our departments some of the current students and on the second day we went and had our student IDs made up, met the student organizations, and registered for classes. I was also able to take care of some other stuff like dropping off my final transcript and looking at the dorms I’m going to be staying in. But now I’m all done with that stuff, I’m an official student of Middle Tennessee State University!

Unfortunately though, my camera died while I was there. I went to take a picture with it and noticed that the screen had a lovely line through it and it was all white with black splotches. Not good. Thankfully its still in warrenty though (barely – it expires on the 3rd of June),  so I’m sending back to get hopefully it fixed. I’m so bored without that thing. And graduation is in 2 days, so there won’t be many pictures. Maybe I’ll steal Rachel’s camera and use it during the grad party.