surprise!

ok time to see who actually checks my blog regularly(or everyday as pete claims) and see how long it takes for people to realize i've updated again...
i don't really have anything in particular i want to blog about today, i'm just really bored cause i've been off work for the last couple weeks and it gets old pretty fast, so here i am and we'll see where it goes. k so first off, i went back and read all my previous blogs and it was pretty fun seeing what i was on about at different times in the last few years...i guess sports were still as big a deal to me then as they are now. and i had kinda forgotten about a couple of those serious posts...not in the sense that i forgot about those topics in general because i haven't but just in the sense that i forgot i had blogged about them and it was interesting to see what i had written as well as encouraging to me to do more of that.
i guess i want to apologize and explain a little of my life over the past several months. i don't know if anyone reading this feels that it's neccessary for me to apologize but i sort of do. i say this because over the last several months (up until february ish at least) i had been slowly cutting myself off from the world around me. i was becoming a bit of a shut in at home and just didn't want much to do with people in general(with the exception of christmas time when i was really happy to be home and to spend some time with my family). this would probably be much more noticeable if you were here in calgary and saw me regularly (or didn't as the case became). i know that i have never been great at communicating with people and even when in the same city there were times when i didn't see anybody for extended periods of time, but this was different. this time was a total cutoff and it was from just about everybody in my life. and it is for that reason i want to apologize to you. whether you noticed it or not, it was a problem and i hope that it's something i have been correcting/will continue to correct in the near future.
i also want to fill you in a little bit on my life over those past few months to maybe give you an idea of what i was going through and why i was feeling and acting like that.
and it all starts with a girl. now i want to make absolutely clear that i am not saying anything bad about her. she is a good girl and who she is as a person had little to nothing to do with my recent struggles, but rather just the situation i got myself into with her. i do not wish in any way to slander her. you are probably all familiar with her and with the situation to a degree but i want to explain a little more fully because until recently i don't believe i had shared some of this with you guys and that's part of the problem.
so the basic situation was that i dated this girl for several months before she broke up with me. over time we mended our relationship to the point that we were pretty good friends again. and after a few months the possibility of a relationship resurfaced, and then went away, and then resurfaced, and then went away. for the most part this was all based on her feelings at any particular time. i had made up my mind that i liked her and that was a feeling she was never able to hold onto for any length of time. and so i was led on a journey back and forth, up and down, and all over trying to just be patient and wait for her. i believe all of you are familiar with that whole situation to some degree or another.
what you may not have known and what i didn't really see just about from the beginning(that is the 2nd beginning after we had broken up and she brought the issue up once more) was the effect that the whole situation was having on my life. again i am not blaming the girl, but rather the situation i put myself into and how i then dealt with it. over time, i was slowly starting to shut down. that whole situation was acting like a cancer inside of me, slowly shutting me down in most areas of my life. i started to lose interest in church and my spiritual life in general, to the point of just about not going to church at all from december through at least part of february(which is something i've never done before, generally never missing more than a week or two at a time and usually for a reason). it wasn't like i lost my faith, but i just didn't care about it. i started to hang out with my friends less and less and by the last few weeks i was spending virtually every moment i wasn't at work just sitting at home keeping to myself as much as possible. now as quiet as i am and as much as i'm probably a little more introverted than extroverted(depending how you define it) i LOVE being with people and just spending time with friends no matter what we are doing, so for me to go hermit like i did was actually a big deal. i also stopped playing guitar for a long period of time(i'm not very good but i like to mess around), i had a very bad attitude and personality going for a couple months, especially at work, and life in general just decomposed a bit for me. by the end of this time i was very apathetic and didn't want anything to do with anyone around me. i was able to put on a face for those around me to make it look like i was fine, but inside i was anything but.
so starting around septemberish of last year that is how my life was devolving. i don't know if it's fair for me to put the entire blame on this one situation, there were probably other factors at work as well, but i believe that the situation with this girl and the way i let myself get bounced around in it, was at least the catalyst to my problems and probably contributed more than anything else.
it took me a long time to realize what was happening to me. maybe partially because it was a slow degenerative problem and so was harder to see it at work, and maybe partially because i was so involved in the situation that it was hard to see outside of it to see what was actually happening. i can't really place my finger on when it happened or what it was that clued me in, but sometime in february of this year, it was like my eyes were just opened and i was suddenly able to see what had been happening to me and the condition of my life. i knew that i was in a terrible place in life and that i had to change things in a big way. i started to go back to church and to pick up my bible more and to make an effort to spend some time with God, but that didn't feel like it was enough. i knew that i had to change some other things in my life as well. about the same time that i had this eye opening experience(and maybe because of it?) i began to realize that the feelings i had once had for this girl, those feelings that kept me hanging on to this bad situation just weren't there anymore. i didn't feel anything for her at all and i wonder now how long that had been the case and i just told myself otherwise. so i decided that i would have to talk to her and tell her how i felt and tell her that i was done with her and that whole situation for good. i felt really good about this for a couple reasons: one because it was the first time in the better part of 2 years that a decision about our relationship was being made by me which gave me a confidence and a strange joy that i didn't expect to feel, and two because i had finally recognized just how bad this situation had been for me and i was taking steps to get myself out of it, which was getting rid of a huge burden in my life.
it was a strange coincidence of timing(or maybe it wasn't at all...), but about a week or so after i ended things with this other girl and was making all of these changes in my life, another girl randomly came back into my life(we had known each other from school but i had not heard anything from her in 2 or 3 years). she got my number from pete and we started to hang out. i wasn't sure what make of it at first, but as the next several weeks went by, she began to make her intentions more and more clear to me(though without actually saying anything as she was waiting for me to say anything). and as time went on i began to realize just how great this girl was and how much i was falling for her. i took some extra time to really examine myself and my situation(considering what i was coming out of) and spent alot of time praying about it to see if this was something that i was ready for(i knew for a week or two that it was something i wanted). and as of this wednesday i asked her out and i am reminded constantly of how great she is and i feel really comfortable, and really good about this relationship.
on top of those changes, i decided to quit my job at the warehouse i was working at and i would try to go back and work with phantom screens for the summer(which i am doing...just waiting for my start date), and i made myself pick up my guitar again and i rediscovered to joy i get in messing around on it. all in all i basically just tried to give myself a fresh new start on life in as many areas of my life as i could. i wouldn't say that this has been an overnight success for me...but the more time that has gone by, and especially the last few weeks in april, the better and better i have felt. i really feel like i am in a good space in my life right now and i am excited about the future and about what every day holds for me.
i hope that gives you all an insight into my life recently, and again, i'm sorry for the way i have been until recently(whether you noticed or not). talking specifically to my brothers - including pete of course - you all mean the world to me and feel like i have been holding back from you and not letting you into my life like i should have been. talking about stuff like this or what darrell brought up recently and just about our lives in general is so important, and i don't want to leave you guys out in the dark anymore. and i want you all to know that i love you all so very much because though i know you know it, it just doesn't get said enough.

on a related note to all of this and to the topic breached first(though far from exclusively) by darrell, i've been reading through 1 and 2 Timothy recently, and in those books paul states again and again that as men(and women) of God we must turn away from the evil in this world and pursue holy lives in God.
he says, starting in 2 Timothy 2:19 "Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his" and "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." In a large house there are articles not only of Gold and Silver, but also of wood and clay; some are used for noble purposes, some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart..."
it is my hope that we can turn from the evils in our world and pursue holiness and i hope that is something that we can help each other with.

so that's my piece for now...i don't know how often i'll be blogging(if my track record is anything to go by probly not much) but this one was pretty heavy and i think i'll try to do something a little more light spirited sometime soon...especially while i'm off work and bored to tears...aight. later.