Still Puzzled...

Sometimes I wonder why I even keep this thing going. Nevertheless, it's 11:30 in the p.m. and I find myself at this monitor, again unable to sleep. How can it be so hard to sleep when one drove 4.5 hours home from Ohio today and then worked one's backside off at work for 6 hours [last nite of training(!)]? And why do I keep referring to myself with the generic pronoun "one" when this is a journal, not a philosophy term paper? I don't get it. I don't get myself.

Let's see, what else is troubling me. Oh yes, friendships. I don't understand why it seems to be so difficult to maintain them, let alone build on them. I feel I'm doing a flunk-worthy job at present at the former of the two, and the latter of them, well, it seems to have been on the backburner all semester. A lil' harsh? Perhaps, but it feels like it, and I won't discount the suck factor that seems to be beleaguering some relationships that are really important to me. MAN, do these things take work.

Then again, they should always be fun, maybe even in the darker times. A mentality of "Well, crap, I wonder just how God's gonna work this one out" might be in order as a healthy response to relational breakage. Truth is, I don't even know how these breakdowns in communication and feelings of resentment are precipitated. I do know that I do a handy job of perpetuating them at times, and for that I wish I could summon the courage and humility to apologize to more than one person.

In short, I just want to laugh again. I want to fo' real laugh again. I feel like I haven't since this summer, or at least not regularly by any means. And when I do, I can be a lot of fun. This is possibly my last fall in school, and I said earlier this semester that "My year is not going to suck. I simply won't have it." I stand by that statement. I'll laugh again, of this I'm sure. I could very well laugh tomorrow. Yes, on a Monday even. God's in the business of rocking my world time and again, and I'll grant Him that opportunity gladly. Hopefully I take hold of it when He does.

Man, I feel like I've gotten so... serious in the last couple years. I guess a lot of "stuff" has come into the light. Learning lessons, seeing one's own dirt revealed to himself and to others and being with them as they also air their own can be taxing, emotionally, spiritually, relationally and probably in other ways brought to you by the suffix "-ally."

I miss some people in my life. I miss people near and far, some of whom I've brushed shoulders with recently, but unfortunately that seems to be all I've managed to do with them. Brushing shoulders. I had a good weekend, but I don't feel I should have to try to convice myself of that.