(When this began)
I had nothing to say
And I get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
And I let it all out to find
That I’m not the only person with these things in mind
(Inside of me)
But all the vacancy the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I’ve got left to feel
(Nothing to lose)
Just stuck; hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own

[Chorus]
I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I’ve held so long
(Erase all the pain till it’s gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real
I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

And I’ve got nothing to say
I can’t believe I didn’t fall right down on my face
(I was confused)
Looking everywhere only to find
That it’s not the way I had imagined it all in my mind
(So what am I)
What do I have but negativity
‘Cause I can’t justify the way, everyone is looking at me
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain; hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own

[Repeat Chorus]

I will never know myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel anything else, until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything till I break away from me
I will break away, I’ll find myself today

[Repeat Chorus]

I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m somewhere I belong
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m somewhere I belong
Somewhere I belong

Today in chapel I heard a really good message about returning to my first love, Jesus Christ. It was a call to refocus on what is really important - my relationship with Jesus Christ. If the relationship is there, everything else will follow. The speaker spoke from Revelation 2, where John addresses the Church in Ephesus. The Church is commended for living upright and holy lives, rejecting evil. They are condemned, however, for forsaking their first love.

This was used to show that striving to be holy should not be our main focus. We need to focus on our relationship with Jesus. Keep doing what you’re doing, but make sure the priorities are correct.

And on another note…

Hebrews 3:12-13

“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Why can’t I breathe whenever I think about you?
Why can’t I speak whenever I talk about you?

Such a great notion, the idea of falling in love…

Too bad in the song it involves cheating!

Delight yourself in the LORD
   and he will give you the desires of
            your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD;
   trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteousness
            shine like the dawn,
   the justice of your cause like the
            noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD and wait
            patiently for him;

I’m more in contact with friends than I have been in a long time. Things are going really well, and yet I have such a poor outlook on life. I’m constantly thinking that none of my plans will work out in the end. I have this fear that I’ll end up a single and alone, living a pointless life of going to work and coming home to nothing.

I have so many blessings in my life. I’ve gone to a great Christian school for the past four years, and I’m leaving with a good education. I have an awesome family, and friends that really care about me. I have Jesus Christ. I had an incredible experience growing up in Africa. I talk to friends on the phone for hours and it’s awesome.

Even things for next year a looking good. I don’t have a job lined up, but I’m hoping to be near my best friend - and we haven’t lived near each other for the past five years. What more could I really want?

Why do I feel the way I do?

But it’s not, and it never will be. I try to look on things with a good attitude, but it’s not always easy. I’m here at Taylor almost done, and I’m totally mixed about leaving. I can’t believe that my life as I have known it (non-stop education) is coming to an end - and I’m super excited about that. But it means I have to say bye to people too. And that’s never easy.

I feel that as I leave this place I should have some sort of direction for my life. But I’m just floating right now. I’m about to turn 23, I’m single, I don’t have a job or a definite place to live. My friends live in either direction across the country and talking on the phone every now and again just isn’t enough to make it feel as though they’re here with me.

It’s a time of change and transition and decision making, and every choice I make closes off a hundred other possibilities. Which is the path for me?

The Road Not Taken
~Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So here I am, sitting down in the dungeon (the CSS dept. here at Taylor), waiting for my 2:00 lab to start. Right now I’m listening to Linkin Park, Reanimation. It’s a neat album.

My ankle: It’s getting better slowly. The color is fading now, and I’m walking around fine. It’s still tender and it hurts when I stretch it, but there is definite improvement. It was a pretty bad sprain - it turned purple from my foot to a third of the way up my leg. A word of advice…try to not land on a basketball next time you’re out shooting around…

School: Things are starting to wind down. I have a total of four more projects and three chem labs. One of the projects is coming along well, and we’ll keep banging away on it tonight. One of my labs is today, so come the end of the week, I’ll have three projects and two labs left. Not to mention only four more weeks of school. Wow.

Job: I don’t have a job lined up, but I’m not too anxious about it. My parents will be in the states for about a month this summer, and mid-July we are heading down to Dallas for a wedding. The more that I think about it, I think it would be good for me to spend some time with my parents. So I’m considering hanging out with them, going down to the wedding, and staying in Dallas after the wedding. Seems like an ideal time for me to move. If I don’t have a job lined up at that point, at least I’ll be in the area trying to find a job instead of from a distance.

Chip: Five weeks from graduation, and he just started dating a freshman here. We’ll see how that goes…

“Runaway Train” - Soul Asylum

Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a blowtorch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning

So tired that I couldn’t even sleep
So many secrets I couldn’t keep
I promised myself I wouldn’t weep
One more promise I couldn’t keep

It seems no one can help me now,
I’m in too deep; there’s no way out
This time I have really led myself astray

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I’m neither here nor there

Can you help me remember how to smile?
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded?
Life’s mystery seems so faded

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just a-drownin’ in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train

And everything seems cut and dried,
Day and night, earth and sky,
Somehow I just don’t believe it

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I’m neither here nor there

Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughing at the rain
A little out of touch, a little insane
It’s just easier than dealing with the pain

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I’m neither here nor there

Runaway train, never coming back
Runaway train, tearing up the track
Runaway train, burning in my veins
I run away but it always seems the same

Spring Break is over. Easter Break is over. We are now in the final stretch. No more breaks. Just five weeks of classes, four days of finals, and then graduation.

Time is flying.

I’m ready to go. Rather than look at this last little stretch as something I don’t want to do, I’m trying my best to take advantage of the time I have left here. So many people that I may never see again.

“First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives” - MxPx

Not a lot right now makes sense to me
And it won’t go quietly
Not a lot right now makes sense to me
And it won’t sit patiently

I’m gonna chase my dreams and catch up to them
I’m gonna find you some how, some way, somewhere, some day

First day of the rest of our lives, I miss you already
Last time I saw that look in your eyes, I miss you already
First day of the rest of our lives, I miss you already
Last time I saw that look in your eyes, I miss you already

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone
Where’s life taking me?
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone
Always traveling

I’m gonna chase my dreams and catch up to them
I’m gonna find you some how, some way, somewhere, some day

First day of the rest of our lives, I miss you already
Last time I saw that look in your eyes, I miss you already
First day of the rest of our lives, I miss you already
Last time I saw that look in your eyes, I miss you already

I wanna love my job
I wanna love my life
But most of all, I wanna fall in love

First day of the rest of our lives, I miss you already
Last time I saw that look in your eyes, I miss you already
First day of the rest of our lives, I miss you already
Last time I saw that look in your eyes, I miss you already

So after having complained about my left foot yesterday, this is what happens today. A friend and I went to the gym to shoot around and the ball got wedged between the rim and the backboard. After running, jumping, and hitting the ball a number of times it was still wedged securely in its place. A couple other guys were on the other end of the court also shooting around, and seeing our dilemma, they rolled their ball toward us so we could use it to knock our ball back down. Problem is, I was still in the jumping process…

One of the guys yelled “Ball!” to warn me, but it was too late. I came down on the ball with my right foot, and as the ball rolled under my weight, so did my ankle. Needless to say, I lay on the floor for a few minutes in pain before braving the standing up process.

All said and done, I’ve rolled my ankle worse in the past and it got better then, so I’m pretty sure it’ll get better this time too. Funny thing is, my left foot hurts because I’ve been playing sports regularly, so now that my right ankle is trashed I won’t be playing sports, so my left foot should get better…

It’s an interesting world.

And now I’m off to bowling, where I hope my ankle doesn’t interfere too much…