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July 29, 2006
Weekend Reflections
I've been watching the Sopranos lately. Non-stop actually...if I've got a free hour I will usually elect to open a bottle of Cabernet, cook some pasta and live vicariously through gangsters. It's an entertaining show but I think I feel the best when the episode ends and I realize I don't have to live such a life as theirs. Sure, it'd be great to have envelopes full of cash passed to me and live an extravagant lifestyle but, the constantly looming threat of death would easily overshadow even the greatest pleasure.
I was trying to figure out why I love the show so much and I think it's because I've been able to download it and watch it at my own pace. Sometimes, after a particularly heinous death I want to step away and go to the beach to remind myself that these people aren't real. On the other hand, at the end of the episodes that are more lighthearted and humorous I will keep watching, interested to see how the ongoing interpersonal relationships between the characters will evolve. All that evaluation eventually got me thinking about time and how we only get life a second at a time. It's maddening really, when you think about it. We can overstuff ourselves with food or drink ourselves into a stupor but, we can only live like everyone else: a moment at a time.
I'm twenty-five now, old enough to rent a car, and I'm still so paralyzingly reflective. Just last night I had dinner to celebrate my brothers birthday and from the all the food and wine I got tired and fell asleep in my parents bed. My mom woke me up, told me I should spend the night and made up my old bed. She was so cool about everything...she opened a brand new toothbrush for me and got two bottles of water to put near the bed incase I got thirsty in the night. She opened up the windows all the way and put the fan right on me. Since living on my own I had gotten so used to doing things by myself that I forgot what it was like to have someone reflexively care for me like that. I pulled off all my clothes and laid down with Anise, my brother's new kitten. She thought my toes were rodents and kept incessantly biting them, keeping me from sleep.
I just started thinking about everything, like I always do when I visit home. I thought of how it was the wedding day of the first girl I ever seriously considered would be my wife and how I didn't really miss her but, rather the thought of her and I when we were experiencing college together. I thought about how I wished she was happy and how great of a mom she was going to make. I thought about how all the ideas and plans I've made for my life never quite work out and how what is erected in their wake is always more exciting and pure.
I thought about how life hurts sometimes but how that's OK because I know that God has this plan for my life and He won't be satisfied til it's finished. My mom used to say that whenever I go up the stairs that I shouldn't waste a trip and bring up something of mine that was left on them. I think that's how God is. We get hungry so we go to the store and somewhere, inside, there's someone He wants us to talk to or something He wants us to do to clue people in to the great act His Son did to wash our sins away and give us new life. If we aren't on the lookout for those things than we've wasted a trip; all the emotional and physical needs we have are just His way to keep us in motion, bumping into new people and circulating the life Christ started two millennia ago.
Oh, and I heard Jay-Z say that success was the best revenge and I thought that was kinda poignant.
Posted by Jon at July 29, 2006 08:01 PM