five years and counting


it feels like i am supposed to be thinking something like, "man, may 25, 2002 feels like it was just yesterday." but it doesn't. in most ways, five years ago feels like five years ago. in most ways, five years ago feels like a lifetime ago. so much has changed since my and sarah's wedding day. so many peaks. so many valleys. so much different. not a lot the same.

just a few highlights (or lowlights in some cases) of the last five years...in the last five years i experienced the best of times as the student director of huffman united methodist church. great attendance. great experiences. young people learning to understand the idea of being a christian and being of the world all at the same time. me learning the same. in the last five years, also, i resigned myself to the thought that my church and myself would be better off without me and i gave up my staff position at the church i love. looking back, i may be better off, but the church and the youth group is not (of course, i am biased in this thought.). shortly after leaving huffman, i moved part-time to huntsville and became partly responsible for a failed church plant. in the last five years, i became a father...to a girl. unbelievably, we are both living to recount the experience thus far and may even be the better for it...both of us. in the last five years, i learned what it meant to be a husband and chose to be one. a real one, not just on paper. in the last five years, i've lost friends and i've gained friends. i've lost a pet and regained a pet. bought a car. bought a house. cut some loose ends. have left some hanging. bought less music. started a blog. in the last five years, i feel like i've learned more about how humans behave and react to one another than i ever would have thought possible. in the last five years, i feel like i've figured it out.

now, that's not all to say that i've figured it all out. just it. i am just comfortable and confident in my own skin for the first time in my life. and i am loving it. but i will say this, if i come as far in the next five years as i have in these last five, i might just have to change my name to neo and start breaking shit with my mind. i am just saying.

comfort and confidence is a happy place and an enlightening feeling. but i must be careful not to rest with the feeling. i told sarah on our anniversary that the biggest difference that i think she's made in my life is that, over the last five years, i feel like i have stopped taking the easiest option every time i am presented with a choice. taking the longcut to where i am now may not have always been the one that made sense to "most people" or even myself, but it brought me to a very dangerous place.

a place that tells me it's just about time to stir the pot again. but not because stirring the pot is the cool thing to do. because stirring the pot is the right thing to do.

happy anniversary, sarah. and thanks.