The Things (and People) I Love

Tonight I'm listening to a cd a friend of mine has given me and compiling some of the blogs I've written over the last two years (85 pages). The site I used to write for will soon be no more, but in it are a lot of memories and a reflection of the journey I made, and we made, together. I guess that's fitting toward the end of another year.

Next to my computer is a picture of this girl--the one who made the cd for me--and it's one of her from around the first time that I got to know her almost three years ago. The picture, the music, and the blogs remind me of another time, when all these things were new and I was nervous, and not sure about falling in love.

Sometimes we forget what made us fall in love in the first place: with a person, a place, a song, an idea. To let you know where I was three years ago, I had just moved to Michigan after living in Illinois for ten years. I didn't know anyone, and I was stepping out on a great adventure I thought. Life would never be the same, and the words I had been waiting for had finally come: "It's time to go."

With fear and excitement I went, not knowing what the next day would bring as I met new people and learned more about myself. I had found my desert, but I was more emotionally raw and dependant on God than I had ever been in my life. My writing reflected it. My thoughts about relationships reflected it.

But then we get used to things. We grow comfortable with ritual over the first moments that drew us to realize our need for God. We begin to accept the other person in our life as a certainty, and forget what it was like to have not had them in our lives or what it would be like to lose them. The new places we stop seeing, and the new streets and routes become familiar, well worn, even contemptible ruts. Tonight, with new music and rereading some of the thoughts when things were new, it's becoming fresh again, only more than I even realized then.

Tomorrow I leave on another journey, to pursue seeing again through fresh eyes and remembering some of the things I have forgotten. I hope I find it; I hope we can take the journey together and share what we find along the way.