acts.1.eight

this will be my last post of 2006. i do not want to write again until the new year. i have decided to stay away from blogging until the new year because i am not in a very positive place right now. this christmas season has not been one of my hardest, but hard nonetheless. and it feels like each day gets more dark for me. my attitude has not improved this week since returning from seattle. today was a struggle. getting through work was a major challenge. i found myself not even wasting time, but just doing nothing. thinking of where i should be right now. thinking of where my friends and former colleagues are. thinking about what i could have been doing with my life. instead i am living the reality of where i am. not a bad place altogether, just not the place i want to be. by place i mean my position in life, not fargo. thank God i am in fargo. if i were in a different physical location right now i do not think i would be better off. my core is here. my foundation is firm in this place. but the structure of my life is unstable, and what rebuilding has taken place seems poised to crash to the ground again.

my apologies to the ons class of 2006. i will not be joining you at urbana. my heart is hurting because i long to be there alongside of you. my prayers go out to you and i hope none of you will have to experience what i have over the last 7 months.

i’ve been meaning to mention it, but my friend lisa has been having crazy traveling adventures also. read about them here…

today was a much better day. we got up this morning and drove into seattle. real seattle. downtown seattle. we drove past the university of washington and the experience music project. i saw the space needle, although i did not actually visit it. we went to pike place market and walked around. we even went in the first starbucks (i resisted the temptation to burn that place down). i met up with my friend beth. she and i met at intervarsity new staff training. it is pretty amazing how friendship works. we met 6 months ago in madison, wisconsin. and hung out for the first time since then in seattle, wa. i live in fargo, nd. she lives in fresno, ca. we caught up on each other’s lives. walked around downtown and around the waterfront. we drank some coffee and smoked cigars. it was, no doubt, the highlight for me so far. i am a downtown person. i do not get that excited about mountains, but i do get excited for tall buildings. i will take crowded city sidewalks to empty wilderness trails. although i will say, looking out over the ship yards past qwest field and safeco field and seeing the mountains rise in the distance… that was quite the view. we walked to a place, i think it was called recovery cafe(?), where they provide coffee and a place to warm up for people down on their luck. outside the cafe was a man with a small dog trailing behind him… and an oppossum on his shoulder. a live oppossum. the things you see when you go downtown. i love it.

so the trip got better. i saw seattle. i am still not sure i would want to live here, but i think i could get used to it. i am glad i am here. i am glad i am with my family. i am incredibly thankful for friends.

day two of seattle has been better than day one. we picked my mom up from the airport this morning. unfortunately, my sister and her husband will not be here, so we’re not quite a complete family. we have not done much other than drive so far. i have not been to downtown seattle yet. tomorrow we will be heading down that way to see the fish market and to do some shopping. i am hanging out with a friend from california that i know from intervarsity staff also.

i’m not so sure i would have liked it here if i had moved out back in september. maybe i just haven’t seen the cool parts of town yet. i think i have been hanging out in what mark van s calls generica. as of right now though, i do not think this will be at the top of places to live in the future.

i am in seattle and thus far it has not been a merry christmas. my flight was ok, nothing great. slept some. listened to some jams. read a little. then the adventure began.

first of all, the only time i have ever had luggage issues when traveling was during a trip to see my brother while he was still in college. it was spring break of my senior year of high school and my luggage arrived in missouri 3 days after i arrived in missouri.

i have now had two luggage incidents. both on trips to see my brother. only this time, my luggage arrived on time. so what’s the problem you ask? my bag was mangled. the official explanation is that it got drug across the tarmac at one of the airports (fargo, salt lake city, or seattle) by the cart that hauls luggage to and from the plane. it looked like my bag exploded. the one side was torn and shredded and melted. at first it appeared the damage to the contents was minimal, but on second look that was not the case. officially, damage to the contents of the bag was estimated at $200. the airline gave me a new bag to replace the destroyed one (a much nicer bag, i might add), and i will be receiving compensation for the other damage. tonight, i began working on replacing some of the items that were ruined. one item that can never be replaced: my herb engberg original work shirt. if you do not know what i am talking about, ask me sometime.

needless to say, it has been a rough start to my seattle adventure. there are other things too… i will not be mentioning them here. not yet at least.

today didn’t have to be this way, tomorrow is another day. another day to make things right. a chance to fully live this life. i am very tired and i am going to bed now.

i hope we find the answer. i hope the anythings that are possible become the anythings that happen. the good things. the right things.