I’m going to tell you about my dreams again. I am doing this with a bowl of pot noodles waiting to cool down, so I assure you this post will only be as long as it takes water to get from scalding to less scalding.

Introductions aside, I’ve been having a series of vivid dreams lately. Digression: you can tell how well I am doing personally - mentally - by how often I blog and by my dreams. When I’m fine, I hardly dream at all. Maybe because when I’m fine I have less time to think, as I’m out doing things. Am I the only one in this? I don’t think so. But I’m probably the only person I know that actually blogs about my dreams (though I’ve yet to decide what level of pathetic it involves). And if you see me blogging a lot, that means a lot is going through my head, and as invariably happens, it ends up spending time on your screen. How much? You choose.

YouTube is down. My noodles are still too hot. Maybe I’ve learned to type faster or some such.

Some of these dreams are not fit to be written, I admit. But the strangest of them was a rather surreal trip through an entire supermarket for what felt like hours with - well, let’s not mince words here: a former girlfriend. Surreal because the supermarket was not selling food or anything else one might expect to find in a supermarket. It was selling houses, and in the proceeding hours after the dream happened I still cannot figure how they fit the houses into the building. Nor do I remember what either of us said, except that I remember speech of some kind. What I do remember is the instant after waking up knowing it was just a dream, something of a departure; usually the dream fades and with it fades any security in possible futures. I just remember waking to the facts, and to the regrets, and to the guilt.

Ah the noodles are a good heat. Let me eat inbetween typing.

Maybe you think I’m quite the odd duck for letting a dream deconstruct my equilibrium. Or perhaps there’s a better explaination. See, tomorrow I have a date. Yeah you heard me: a date. And some of you are scratching your head, going, “I though you said rebounding was stupid?” Bollocks. Who am I to know anything? It’s not rebounding: it’s taking a chance, making the shot, sinking the putt when you really need to. Maybe I’m just saying I don’t have the stones to pull myself up by the shoestraps anymore. Maybe you all will reply that that sentence made, quite literally, no sense. But shit, I’m sick of sitting on my hands.

Pot noodles sure are a good source of… something. I’m no dietician!

Bravery; what is it? Going forward in the face of fear? Something like that. Some of you will wonder what I have to fear. And I will tell you I fear doing it wrong. Screwing up. Getting in deep and pissing all over it. I will tell you that I’ve found the enemy, and it is me.

I suddenly enjoy these noodles much less. Cardboard crap in a bucket…

I will spill. Yes, it still hurts to think about you. I strangely still care what you think of me, though so much time has passed: I hope this will pass with more time. I am confident it will.

It’s odd how people appeal to me as if I’m a good person. Where do you get this idea? You should instead appeal to my baser instincts. They’re much more likely to respond.

It’s odder yet how we build images of ourselves as we’d like to be seen, isn’t it? Anyone honestly looking can find theirs. I am strong; I am confident. No, I am scared; I am terrified by the world.

There are words I say to evoke the appropriate reactions. Falsehood, yes. There are things I do to make things easier. But I am no knight in armor. But in the end these are not games, nor am I moving pieces to attack or counter-attack. It is what it is. Maybe it’s bullshit.

I am becoming who I am. It bothers me. I am falling in love slowly. It frightens me half to death. I have told you everything inside of me and you still think yourself the worst of us two. Different you this time. But I am letting the fear pass through me and I think you should too. There’s no compelling reason. I will simply give you what I have never given anyone before. It isn’t much. It’s just all of me.

Looking around my apartment I fail to see a trophy. Nothing won. I feel like a stranger these days, to myself, and to my supposed friends. I am moving soon to a new place to match what’s inside of me, so I can be a stranger in a strange land.

Remember how, a few weeks back, I wrote a soul-baring hate letter to myself? I do. In it I said I was afraid of what might happen if I lost the drive, when the apathy sets in. Today, I feel as if all those things I was afraid of have come true: can’t even look at myself now.

The problem with people who like to tell the truth is they seem to inevitably be jackasses. Over time, this leads the good people of Notjackassville to connect being honest with being a moron or saying whatever twisted thing comes into ones head.

Can you be honest without being a jackass? I think so. Try mixing humility in there. And please ignore that I’m not very good at humility or honesty. Or not being a jackass.

• I should apologise for some things: they never should have happened. But what do you do when patterns become so deeply ingrained erasure seems impossible? I don’t know. Neither do you. But a dream last night reminded me of a few regrettable roads taken (though it took me a while to be able to say that, even).
• Don’t be disheartened. It’s not all going to be like this. Remember, there is joy in passing the torch to a fresh lung.
• Maybe the next season of Scrubs should switch the format of the show; think about it: until now J.D. has been a goofball whose largest crisis was probably his on/off relationship with Elliot. Through his eyes, the hospital is one big screwball comedy. Now, with his girlfriend pregnant, his goofy immaturity can be cast aside, the show can be filtered through the grownup eyes of the new John Dorian, and it can become an hour-long medical drama competing with House. Of course, a move that gutsy and edgy would alienate its entire core audience, all twenty-three of them
• I fail to understand why people seem constantly shocked that soldiers get killed when they go to war. Civillians also get killed. It’s just a fact. Get used to it, or do something to help. In the meantime, shut up.
• In that vein, I have a hard time mustering up any empathy for people in Lebanon and Israel: I know people are dying and incredible pain’s being absorbed by thousands of people, and on an intellectual level that fact troubles me. But if these people aren’t in my specific vicinity, I can’t really feel their pain. Does this make me a bad person? It seems as if I should feel something; the fact that those who know me say I have a healthy dose of empathy for those I can touch and can see doesn’t help. I know that already.
• That dream follows: I was kissing an old girlfriend in my dream (the most familiar thing in the world, I might add; we knew eachother like a Swiss watchmaker knows gears, to borrow a phrase), when she leaned over, saying, “I can’t believe I’m still with you.” Later, I woke up and thought, “I can’t believe she’s still with me,” smiling until I remembered she is not in fact still with me. On this morning’s drive to work, I found myself thinking I may not be as over it as I’d like to admit. You understand this is painful to throw out there: I don’t like this feeling or this admission. But I am - as always - naked and ashamed.
• My wonderful sister Elyssa is out buying coffee for me right now. Wonderful, wonderful girl.

One last thing: some lyrics for your eyes from Mae’s Embers and Envelopes.

We write to apologize. We ask to look past life as it goes by.
I know you have sacrificed time, life, love, time to fly.
Please consider all things trite, forgiveness will be the thing that gets us by.
I know to have something like this broken is hard to fix.

Embers, we’re burning bridges down. Envelopes stuffed with feelings found.
To write this down as means to reconcile.

We write to patch things up, maybe not to agree but to proclaim love.
Let’s look ahead and then we’ll see the One whose glory never ends.
And based on that we’ll see, there’ll be room for change, but gradually.
I know to have something like this broken is hard to fix.

If all is said and done and over, if we don’t have to, we’re not going to.
Make the change, it’s worth the try. What’s broken can’t be fixed tonight.

I have two favourite days of the week: Sunday and Monday. The reasons are, of course, quite different, but the fact remains. Two favourite days. Perhaps the most salient points in all of this aren’t why these two run neck-and-neck in the eternal greyhound race of days, but why they differ. Fully expecting you not to care even a tiny little bit, let me explain.

Sunday I go to church. Twice, even. For most people, that’s a little bit of overkill, and to be honest with you, I see no good reason that there should be two church services instead of one; the fact remains there are two, so most weeks I attend both. My church has good preaching, another thing I enjoy: it’s not often I am challenged spiritually outside of those sermons - except for my good friends, thank you. Often I have to challenge my thinking based on the drama of scripture; though I’ll be frank and admit I have a difficult time placing myself under it instead of over it. I’m no genius, that’s for sure; I may be on the cusp of brilliance, but always on the cusp and never actually fully there. All the same, I have the same crippling burden of knowlege and ego to go with it, and scripture constantly plays the hammer to my self-loving nail. In those moments, I’m glad my mind can’t come up with the ten thousand ways to escape from underneath it: I am not so smart as to avoid God where he shows himself.

That’s not the end of it, though. Church is community, and I enjoy my friends, their conversation, their company, and at the end of the day just love the fact that they’re there. Some of them could live a little closer - you know you should all move to Mississauga, the Bedroom City - but all the same, there they are.

A great lazy day, too. I’m not sure about all the Sabbatarians out there, but I fully enjoy Sundays just doing nothing at all. Then again, you know me: I get bored quickly. It often turns into a time to play piano, play guitar, read a smashing novel, tinker with my own mind to find how very awkward its geometry is, or talk about anything at all under the sun to anyone who can return words.

Monday is different in every way. Monday is the rush of adrenaline, the loading of springs, the bustle, the flow of things coming and going. I’ve never - as far as I can remember - had a boring Monday. Every customer calls on Monday, and every package arrives. Employees come to work ready to hit the bricks: we always get a lot done on Monday.

And at the end of the day I collapse into bed, feeling like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag, but aware how in one day I’ve actually made a difference in someone’s life. Even if that difference was merely getting tools to them on time; I may be a small cog in the economy, but I’ve done my bit. And my bit is good - it makes me happy.

Monday also seems the best time to catch up on a weekend’s worth of stories. Elyssa, as always, will have puttered around the house; Rebekah will remind me she’s still guyless and enjoying her life; Jerry will walk through the door, coffee in hand, ready to pawn off on me another hapless female; Steve will have put yet another piece of trim somewhere important in Casa Anjema; and Daryll will still be eyeing my head for his skull collection. I’ll walk over to the manual department and maybe get one of those date-filled cookies from Stu, and we can all have a mighty laugh at what outlandish garb Brian may or may not be sporting that day. I love stories; thus, I love Mondays.

This Sunday sticks out, though. For some reason it’s the best one I’ve had in months. If you were to ask my why, I could list several reasons, but at the end of examination I simply feel better. Or, as Nick says, we’re welcoming back the Dan we haven’t seen in two years.

Maybe that’s the meat of this post: I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere, but that place is closer to where I started. Am I wiser for the wrong road taken? Yes, and in that sense there is no shame in having walked that way, but in another sense a cloud has lifted from over my head. And it’s good to feel it go. And it’s bad to feel it go.

Do you know what I’m talking about? The movie Swingers does, in its own testosterone-filled way. You live with something so long, good or bad, when it’s gone, sometimes you miss it - simply because you were used to it being there. Yet, I was no more certain of my future a year ago than I am now; but with the kite string untangled and that old fabric and wire floating away, I can do it right this time, whatever this time holds. Or I can do it better. Or I can at least give it the ole college try.

Like I said. It was a good Sunday.

This may come out of theological left field for some of you, but I have to say it anyways. Considering that quite a few people I know are just now contending with Federal Vision issues, it would appear that I’m a little ahead of the curve, but that’s neither here nor there: the more I read of the emergent conversation, the more I find myself in common with so very many of their talking points.

I never thought I would say this. Really. I still have a dream of having the five solas tattooed on my arm, but there’s something about the emerging church that’s very, very attractive.

Maybe it’s that they give a crap. They realise the old ways aren’t working, and despite the flailing arms of a few of the weirder ones, they’re finding ways to influence culture and create infective community. I can respect that no matter what theological racing stripes you wear.

I’m giving some thought to this today: what am I doing where I am to create community, to reach out, and to find ways to play the drama of scripture in others’ lives? The answer, I’m pretty sure, is nothing.

This is the question: how much of my wonderful Reformed theology would have to go by the wayside? None would be a wonderful answer, but let’s face it, there’s about five Reformed churches in Mississauga. To imagine a missional Reformed church (even a missional Presbyterian gathering of any sort) is a bit too much to ask.

My emergent sympathies aren’t that strange, I don’t think. They’re an outgrowth of a growing question: what am I going to with my life? And how am I going to do it? And how does it become something that isn’t simply about me, my goals, my ambitions, my dreams, my prosperity, my exegetical boxes, my razor-edged beliefs, and my own self-fulfillment?

I will proceed to explain the title of this post, if you’ll allow me.

The best feeling I can think of is meeting someone it seems like you’ve known your entire life: how was she not there in all the memories I have? Someone who, when it comes down to crunch time, will hear out the worst of those memories and its cascading repercussions, but also hear out the best and smile along with me as if it was her own. Someone who loves coffee almost as much as I do to the point of a beverage being how we met in the first place (a boring, altogether charmless story Hollywood would be ashamed to film). Someone who I can relate to on so many levels, emotional to physical. Someone, in the last analysis, to be there.

The worst feeling is a settling understanding that despite the seeming perfection, I am not simply her friend, nor she mine. She is someone you know well enough to see the reciprocity. The only difference being - no, the defining difference being - that she doesn’t see how lopsided this will become. Or, she sees a difference of opinion where I see an unfalthomable gulf. She is someone who I connect with on every level except that most important spiritual level.

I ask myself what to do as realisation dawns. For a moment I question my resolve, even question whether or not that absence is as important as I thought, and at the time it seems such a small thing, such a tiny obstacle. But I know how this plays out, at least I think I do. A stand must be made, and I must be the one to make it: the cascading repercussions of giving in are lessons I am supposed to have learned.

Then I say things to her I know will seem proper later. The drama is over; I’m stage right again. My friends will proceed to encourage me. Former lovers will say sooner is better than later. And I will say tonight I am frighteningly alone: I miss her. Not her potential, or her ideal. I miss her.

Some voice within me says, be calm. Be rational. Be mature. I pray, and the prayer connects me to the God I must believe is behind these movements. I am not alone, not really, but I still miss her.

Isn’t it odd to see how people deal with disaster? Some retreat into themselves and wrap that retreat in the facade of a coccoon. Some branch, go places they never thought they would, and wrap that movement in the emperor’s clothes of stability. Some drown the thoughts in the bitter coolness of alcohol and name that drowning forgetfulness.

But how often do people react with faith? It’s a crutch, it’s imagination, it strikes too close the bone - but maybe it’s the only way you can stand up again. It’s what give strength to let go.

At least, that’s what people tell me. I think it’s true.

How do you figure out who you are?

I know some of you will read this and wonder how anyone could ask this question as the answer is so patently obvious for you. But it’s not for everybody. It certainly isn’t for me. And before I begin this, you should know that I do not believe that complexity is better than simplicity; it’s not inherently more noble to struggle through layers of crap than to know exactly what’s what. Gregory House, for instance, is a complex genius. He’s also a completely friendless asshole. Some of my most geniunely straightforward friends are, on the other hand, true joys to hang around by virtue - I think - of that quality.

But seriously. I got four hours of sleep the other night (I was up late watching Scrubs, and eventually I just couldn’t doze off), and I found myself that morning a completely different person than I was the day before. This change didn’t present normally. There was no irritablity as such, no irrationality. Instead I became a super-confident, verbose, funny (yes, funny), annoying, clever speech-making moron.

It’s a bit of a shock now. Now that the four hours of sleep are 24 hours behind me, that is. I’ve never held to change as a rapid mechanism - for instance, when couples break up and want to stay that way, distance is a very, very good thing - but I hadn’t seen that side of myself for, wow, it seems like half a year or so.

Then it came to me how many different people I have locked up in here. Or how many facets. I don’t know. It confuses the heck out of me most days, because I can be the jock, the sensitive artist, the confidant smooth-talker, the complete geek, the passionate debater, the smartass kid, the comedian, the penatrating advisor, the sympathetic ear, the on and on and on and on, but at the end of the day none of those things define me as a person. Each and every one of those comes out on its own depending on when you catch me. For instance, I tend to become very introspective late at night, as anyone who has hung out with me at a coffee shop will know.

I always get a kick out of people who tell me what is and is not me. Once, I knew a girl who would tell me to knock off using big words to make myself sound more intellectual. Something that always frustrated me because I use big words, I just do. Not only that: how does someone who’s known me a few years on and off expect to know me better than I know myself? I’m as confused as the dickens here, and I’ve been living with me for upwards of 24 years!

So yeah - those of you who do want to know me, few that you are, this is all I can assure you of. At some point you will come to see bits of me that will confuse, terrify, and devastate you. And if you’re lucky that’ll be outweighed by the times you see in me something truly worth keeping despite the rest.