What's on your Pedestal Now?

What makes something or someone important to us? The word in itself is almost like the word "is" in it's definition, in the sense that it has circular logic applied to it.  If you think about it, you know what it means, but then you don't really know at the same time.  The reason why I jumped into all of this is because I was struck with the notion recently that most of the things we feel are important today will soon become menial or even stupid to us later. So what makes that difference for us? Is it time, wisdom, perspective, a combination? I don't get it.  Sometimes things aren't important to us until years later, and sometimes it work the exact opposite.  It's a funny thing because we shed blood, sweat, and tears over these "important" items in our lives and then one day we decide we don't really care anymore.  I can't begin to wrap my head around it.  Whether it be a relationship, a toy, a phone, or a test or a job somehow we find a way to forget it mattered to us.  Which, if we can forget they ever mattered, how can we prove that they ever did?  I question this not to say that nothing matters, or that if we forget why it did that it in fact never mattered.  I am asking because whether it was good or bad looking back at it, it still played a substantial role in our lives.  For something to truly be important to you, you have to put your heart into it.  That's a sad thing to forget about.  Our hearts, they're fragile, but ever hardening.  To me, forgetting why something was important is like hardening your heart.  You are afraid it may happen again, and instead of learning from whatever may have happened, you wish and pretend it never did.  Maybe I'm looking too far into it, but I think sometimes we use our words somewhat loosely. I just hope that in sorting out what is and isn't important to me I won't lose sight of just living.  And more importantly, God.  But at the same time, I want to cure this roller coaster curve that spikes from caring to not caring and make it a much straighter line.  I don't really know where to start, I guess this is as good of place as any.

Yo Ho Me Hearties

My life is riddled with mistakes and regrets that come after my triumphs and satisfactions like a plague to overshadow even the brightest of successes.  It constantly begs the question inside of me, why is bad so much stronger than good?  The best of all deeds would never make up for the worst, I don't know if that's just in our society or if that is a universal truth but regardless I don't understand it.  It brings me to looking myself in the mirror and thinking that I'm no more than a pirate.  Taking my mistakes from one situation to the next and never looking back once it's over.  The world is chasing me to contest the way I live but I don't see them, I only see what is ahead.  But still, somewhere in me, I want to look back, not for fear, but rather for the sole purpose of apology.  For I am truly sorry for the things that I have done, I just hope that someday, when given the chance to do something, something courageous, I will find that I am in fact a good man.  Until then, all I know to say is drink up me hearties yo ho!
T.C. Street

Maybe?

So a couple of my friends as of late have been trying to date new people and I'm pretty excited for them but it has got me thinking, which is never really good.  I see them getting ready for their dates and hear them talking about how to ask them out and they approach it in a way that is so different than how I see them.  This always makes me wonder, are they changing because they want to or because they have to?  The way I have always seen a relationship is just like a close friend emotionally. So I guess what I have trouble understanding is why you would act differently around someone you want to date than you would with your friends. Because if they make you want to change for the better then that is a great success, but if you change only when you are around them then it isn't really fair to either of you.  It all points to the situation where you get cut off driving down the road and you shout something you shouldn't or you have a bad day at work and you drink something more than you should or when you get in that first fight and you close off your emotions to the other person.  Thats the big speed bump, what happens then?  And you never know, they may like you enough to just deal with whatever faults that happen to come up, but what if they question what other faults may follow? What other parts of your personality have you been hiding? Have you even been your true self with me at all this whole time?  From there on out the rest of the relationship is a question of truth.  Again, maybe they will see past what you didn't want to admit about yourself, but you just have to remember that maybe works both ways.  Don't take this as a post to anyone specific, it is meant as more of a question really.  We all have secrets, and we all do things that we wouldn't want EVERYONE to know about, so how do we let them out to the people closest to us without scaring them away?  When a girl asks if I smoke do I just say yea I smoke a cigar every now and again, or if they ask if I cuss can I say I do more than I would like to, especially on the football field? No one is perfect but I feel like we are under pressure a lot of times to convey ourselves that way.  To be the Beaver Cleavers and George Bradys of our society and to look like the model person.  But why can't we just be like Shawn Hunter or Screech or just be Tyson Street?  Why isn't the pressure just to be ourselves and have our own unique struggles?  That is what gets to me, not about dating, but relationships with other humans in general.  We are all like icebergs in the fact that 90% of our personality isn't on the surface, but we insist on only seeing the visible 10%.  That is becoming my challenge to myself, to seek out that hidden 90% that everyone has.  Maybe it will help me find something or someone I'm looking for, but maybe works both ways.

The No Face

So today I was walking down the street and I don’t know if it was because it was warmer than 20 degrees outside or if I was just being particularly observant but I noticed something.  Whether it is because they are comfortable or because they are stylish EVERYONE has a Northface jacket.  When I got into the classroom it became even more apparent when not just half the class had one but over 3/4 of the class were wearing them!  It just made me think, why do we subscribe to the labels that we do?  Is it because of function or fashion or just some undying need to be just like everyone else??  It is sort of scary to me really because what happens when the next big thing isn’t a jacket or a type of shoes or even a brand? What is going to happen when the next big thing is robbing banks or killing people?  Of course your mom always says if so and so jumped off of a bridge would you do it too, but there may be a lot of truth to that.  If we all are wearing the same thing all the time how can we tell each other apart?  Although who we are isn’t in what we wear it still is indicative of who we are.  Whether we are just like everyone else, we are different, we like to look sharp, or just like to be comfortable, what we wear tells a lot about us.  I’m not against looking good or wearing something that is nice, all I am saying is that we should think before we do things.  We should question ourselves on our decisions and actions before we blindly follow the crowd.

Look at me now

One day you will look at me and say what happened to him? Where is the chunky kid that stumbled over his words and got red-faced at anything? The one that I remembered didn’t have any dreams or aspirations and didn’t seem to care about anything. He was the one that didn’t have a path in front of him, the one that was going nowhere. All he had was the money in his wallet a bad haircut and no style. Wasn’t he really awkward and didn’t have any common sense? Yea, I remember him being weird, just so different. I didn’t really like him. He made me feel like I was doing something wrong, and I just did what everyone else did. I had abs, and I wore the best clothes. I had all the girls, I was popular. I started on the football team for 3 years. I knew where I was going. I deserved to be at the top. I was cool. Everybody liked me. I had all the coolest parties, I had the best car, I had everything. And on that same day, I will look at you and say, look at me now.