Disambiguation

I haven't posted here in a while, and tonight while I'm sick and can't sleep, I felt a topic come to my mind that I normally try to avoid.

Everyone has their moments of regret in life; I am no different from that perspective, and tonight I want to open up to a personal regret in the hopes that I could persuade you the reader, to do the opposite of what I did. At all cost.

In less than 9 months, I'll be getting married to the missing half of my heart and world. And I'm incredible excited to share a life with her, and get into all the challenges that come with a life-long commitment. My regret is that I won't be able to give her a small piece of myself, because it was broken off and lost a few years back, and its my fault.

Before my soon to be wife, I dated another girl; and at the time, she meant everything to me. So much so that not long after dating her, I opened up completely vulnerable, and (quite bluntly) had sex with her. It was my first time; she had dated several boys before me, and it wasn't her first time.

Less than two years later, with a prolonged and exhausting disagreement, we broke up, and my world had shattered violently. A friend of mine would go on to date her following our breakup, and subsequently I lost not only a girlfriend that I thought was my other half, but a friend I thought was a friend.

I'm not looking for a pity party here; but my point is that it hurt because I had mistakenly become vulnerable to the wrong person, and gave up something special that I can't regain and give to my wife; that first time.

I know the world view is to say well its just 'sex', humans being human. Its also propitiated that having sex early in a relationship before commitment is alright, and commitment first is old-fashioned and prudish. I mean how will you know if your partner and you will be 'compatible' right?

But the problem with this theory is that sex, while fun and entertaining, doesn't stand the test of time. You never hear of couples remaining married for 50+ years because of 'great sex' and if that is the basis for your belief right now, you're in for a shock. You see, not only is commitment a better building block (foundation if you will), but sex, while important, is only a secondary material in a relationship.

You think your not compatible with someone and want to have sex to find out if you are? That theory is kinda silly; ever hear that "practice makes perfect"? Yea you can practice all you want after your committed.

The other problem with having sex with someone, is that if you open yourself completely up as I did, you find yourself forging a deep connection with someone the more you are sexually active. I heard somewhere that 'having sex is not simply a bodily connection, its like having sex with the other person's soul'. That is so true. Its an intimate moment; even if you go into a relationship without being completely vulnerable, having sex will increase your connection with a person over the long run.

I'm saying all this to implore you readers; if your still virgins...keep it that way. Don't give into world pressure, peer pressure, or coolness factor. Don't give it to anyone but someone who is willing to put their life on the line for you, to commit deeply to you, and be vulnerable with you. Because if you do give it away thoughtlessly, you'll find yourself in my position: trying to forget that 'first time' and feeling shame and regret over it; a lost piece of yourself.


I wish I had been smarter; I've managed to forget all my connections with my 'ex' but a few hazy pieces remain; and unfortunately the memory of that first time still burns...it should have been my wife, and I'll be left wondering what if I had stayed a virgin and been able to share in that "first time" when we are finally married.


Instead I now am assailed by doubts and fears; wondering if my future wife will resent me, if she will think I'm comparing my experience; assaulted by guilt of a late night in a dingy parking lot. All knowing it was my fault, my decision.

What makes it worse, is I've unintentionally hurt my future bride. I've had to be honest with her over this not so great regret; and it hurt her when she first heard about it; because she'd been waiting for her 'first time'. If only I had seen this coming.

Don't be me; its not worth it. Don't have that "what if" regret. You can try to relearn innocence, and allow hurts to heal, but the scars will remain forever and you can never have a second shot at that kind of beginning. 

But if you're like me, don't despair either. Yea you can't start over; but there is forgiveness, and a relearning of innocence. I'm there, I should know. Even though I have my regrets, I still have hope, and I will still share something special and unique with my future bride.

You may wonder why I'm making a big deal out of it, but its important, its a special part of you; you don't want multiple deep connections with people you've been with in the past. Nobody wants to remember their ex-whatever. Its a special world for two, no more.

My hope is you'll take something away from this, if nothing else. I don't open up memories like these just for fun; this is something that I think many young people are wondering and dealing with, and I want to share my experience and clarify the sometimes murkiness of this kind of stuff.

Its almost over

Today I realized, that I only have one more semester of school to do, before I begin real, real adult life, and have to start paying off student loans, and finding an apartment, and finding a big-boy job, and deciding where I want to live (which will be where I can find work likely), and how to manage all the other commitments in my life. I guess it seems to be creeping up on me rather fast. I'm not sure I like it. But at the same time, I really am excited.

In the Spring I'll have a Mass Com Certificate and my associates. Not exactly glamorous perhaps for the 6 years I've spent in college, but its a huge step me. And I've finally found a field that I enjoy an endless amount of possibilities as career opportunities and artistic opportunities. I'd like to go back eventually and get that dang B.A but for now, this works, and I'm very excited to keep practicing film.

I'm pretty thankful right now for a part-time job too, however boring it is, because it helps me see the most beautiful and wonderful person in the world every few weeks: my sweetheart.

She's the kindest, most understanding person I know, and extremely pretty (has these adorable ears that turn red when she blushes) and is one of the brightest and most fun girl I know. I'm quite happily in love with her (and lucky me she loves me too), and quite thankful that I have such a person in my life right now.

I'm also thankful for my best friend bro. Without his patience, and continued companionship, my life would be utterly boring.

I'm thankful for my family and siblings, even though they can be a pain, I love them all. All 9 of them.

I'm working on a documentary right now, about World War 2 Vets, but focused on men who are non-combatants and served during the war in a function that didnt involve using guns persay. I'm thinking about calling it "Not A Soldier", because both of the men I interviewed seemed to think they were not soldiers since they didnt carry a gun, even though they were enlisted. I think that's ridiculous, because they certainly were soldiers, and played very important and interesting roles in the war. I'm excited to see how this turns out.

All Shall fade...

I've been thinking about that all conquering thing we call "time". How it changes everything and everyone we know. Sometimes that change is disappointing.


I'm going to whine and complain here a moment (and I'm by no means perfect at this friend business), but what I don't like about time is how it changes friends. Some friends you make don't ever stick around long enough. Its like you have them for a season, but then things happen, life gets in the way, and the friendship slowly crumbles, and I'm not used to that. I like to make friends for life, its hard for me (being an introvert) to make friends to begin with, so I like to hang on to my friends. But what do you do when your friends stop being friends with you? Even when you try to 'keep' things going?

The good news is that there is someone who will always be a friend to you; Jesus Christ. He's always got your back (even when it seems like He's disappeared), and he never grows weary of being your friend. The other lesser good news is that there are a lot of people in the world, and even though some of our friends may slip away in life, there are new ones just around the corner.

Thought for food.

I recently have been pondering the nature of love, and I came to a conclusion that I don't think readily comes to mind sometimes, especially when we're "having a bad day".

Loving someone is a full-time job; its not a perk or side-benefit. Its hard work too; you have to sacrifice something on your part to make it happen and to make it work. Often, I think when one is in that initial stage of a relationship, this kind of thing is farthest from mind, because its NOT hard at all!

That first "puppy-dog" stage. You both want to be together, you want to talk constantly, and learn about each other. Sacrificing time or whatever isn't too terribly hard, in fact its pretty darn easy. And its great, you're in the best spirits you can be.

But then father time spins the clock; suddenly its several months or a couple years later. And it is here that if both parties don't recognize what true sacrifice is, I doubt the relationship will be in good condition, if it lasts.

At this point in time, a couple will start to feel the pressures of life flowing again, which is fine and normal. There is, after all, another world that the two of you live on. Daily commitments will return to normal. Some things you want to do become important (we all have more than 1 dream). In short a situation arises where either the couple will mistake the cooling "puppy-dog" stage as a sign that they don't "love" each other anymore, or find that they are not up to this real kind of "sacrificing myself" sort of thing and call it quits.

Or they will see that their love (if truly grounded) has not departed them, and instead they will begin another level of love, a sacrificing love. Those moments when you are tired from a long day of work, and want nothing better to sit and relax, but instead make time to call and talk to the special someone. That time when you're so busy with everything else, but you drop something for a bit (even though it will cost you somewhere else) and take time to make something, or do something thoughtful. These kind of sacrifices, the supporting of each other, sacrificing yourself for the other, gives rise to the next level of love! Its a deeper type of love, and it doesn't mean that silly "puppy" love is gone forever, in fact both compliment each other and remain together.

Loving someone is an awfully big adventure.

Updates

August 2nd marked a highlight for me. After 8 weeks of an intensive advanced Motion Picture class, our film shorts showed that night. All the sleepless nights, and missing meals, and agonizing over details finally paid off.

We showed ours with 7 other films that night. They were all great, but I loved how well ours turned out. Seeing it in HD (the first time the RVC hosted in HD on a giant projector) and then having the audience of maybe 60-70 people around watching too, it was marvelous. There is one scene in the movie, as a character walks down a flight of stairs that I just get chills. It was really awesome to see our film that Jake Perry, Aaron Markey, Josh White and me all worked on and slaved over and turned into something great. Our professor said it was beautiful; some alumni told us afterwards that they thought we should enter it into a film festival! How awesome is that? We are going to enter it in, after cleaning some stuff up in the next few months.

I'm really grateful for these friends I've found through this class. Most of them are all very hardworking individuals, and we all love video games and geek out over computer hardware and camera stuff. Its a group of people I'm going to try and stay in touch with and work with in the future; I'm going to miss this program once I'm finished with RVC in the spring. I've had the best teachers to date, and the best classroom group experience to date with this bunch of people.

Another highlight of thursday was that a certain cute blonde-headed brown eyed girl came to see me. She skipped her important grad class just to drive 2 hours after she got off working a 6 or 8 hour day to come and surprise me at the screening and watch it with me. What a woman; an amazing precious woman. A real gem, and example of what other men should look for in a woman, because she is simply awesome. The sweetest, kindest, ornery, beautiful, caring, friendly girl who loves Jesus. I am blessed, and don't feel particularly worthy of her, but I'm thankful that she's in my life.

Things that piss me off...

I compiled a list of things that tick me off in most cases. Some may be silly, some serious:


1. People telling me or starting out a political discussion with "I'm Republican/Democrat..." To me that just translates to "I'm an ignorant douchebag."

2. People who can't ever stop to listen, and particularly when listening is vital. Or just being quiet. I think after being in choirs for 5 years, I've developed the same sense of anal sensitivity to when a cellphone goes off in a concert, or someone's whispering disrupts a pianissimo. Its a nearly unforgivable moment, and I have no pity for the offender, even if first time offense. Not only are you destroying a moment that took hours of practice and hard work, you've destroyed an atmosphere and work of art that is hard to restore, and often times will not ever quite sound the same.

3. Poetry with swearing in it. It doesn't make sense and pisses me off. Its not poetry.

4. Movie reboots and sequels that are uncalled for. Pirates of the Caribbean did not need a sequel. A possible reboot of Batman is stupid. Profit ruins many a good thing.

5. Pictures with obvious flash. I love natural lighting. And those annoying flash photographs are a nightmare.

6. Opportunities that walk by without being grabbed either by myself or another person.

7. Internet trolls. Yes I can be one too...have been one at some time as well. And there is nothing quite like trolling a troll.

8. People who throw a huge gruff about something that does not matter. During our film class shoot, a older teacher kept walking by and glaring at us and throwing a big show of being annoyed in general with us. We had permission to be there, our instructor was there as well. There was no reason for it, and it only threw us on edge.

9. Disorganization. This is a new one for me. I generally operate in a disorganized way. However if it is important enough and if it is something I want to accomplish, I grow increasingly frustrated if it lacks organization.

10. Hot sticky days and cold freezing days. Give me somewhere in between.

Moments when time freeze

Every so often we have moments in time where it freezes, and some words that are uttered in that moment are suddenly buried deep into our hearts. Whether a horrible moment of hateful words, or precious words of love, those moments exist.

I had one such moment not long ago. A dream that I've been working hard at for the past 6 months, suddenly I had a 'moment' of frozen time, and beautiful words uttered heartened me that I was heading in the right direction.

It moved me to tears; I was taken back, not really expecting them till much farther down the road. I mean, I kinda figured maybe one day I'd hear them again. I am exceedingly blessed; I may not know entirely whats going to happen in my life or job, but I know I'm in good hands, and learning much.

I've come so far. So very far, that I almost can't see far enough back in the past. And my dreams have changed so much, gotten better. I feel like I've been given better dreams now than ones I thought up in the past, and its a bit overwhelming sometimes to think about.

Needless to say, I'm stressed a bit over uncertainty, annoyed sometimes that I'm not quite independent yet, and wishing I had more money, or that I was done with school and making money with my education.

But in spite of all this, I am happy, very happy indeed. And blessed beyond deserving. I know, a lot of this is vague, but I'd like to leave this behind; sometimes dreams are broken to be replaced with far better dreams.