"We try to justify ourselves as we compare the extent of our sins with others"

 I am not a worse person for this.  I have made a mistake.  Forgive me, Father.  Allow me to resist temptation.  Thank You for Your grace and mercy.  Help me to rid myself of pride.  Give me the strength to carry on.

Amen 

The title is from the song In Between by Linkin Park from the Minutes to Midnight album.  It's a good one.  Unfortunately it reminds me of our relationship.  I say unfortunately because it is a sad song.
Before we get into what I was supposed to be saying last night on the phone, let me say this: I miss you...

I miss you.  I miss late summer nights spent discussing whatever came to mind.  I miss laying in your car thinking about how lucky I was to know you.  I miss our first "snuggle" at the Quarry even though it was awkward and I was being eaten alive out there!  I miss watching you tell people what they need to hear when no one else is willing to say it.  I miss locking eyes with you until you break out in that big beautiful smile like you always do.  I miss floating in the ocean with you even though the water made my sore teeth chatter.  I miss staying up late in New York, so that I could think up the words to describe how I felt about you...

I miss when this relationship was easy, and I miss when I could think about you for a while without tearing up, *but I think most of all, I miss when it didn't hurt to love you*

The last two weeks have been rough ones.  We have had a high concentration of bad conversations.  I'll take credit for some of that, but a few times I think we would have had those conversations regardless of how I felt.  I have been made aware that if I swallow my feelings like I have been trying to do, one day we our going to wake up and realize that we are miserable.  I am not doing you any favors by trying to absorb this pain.  You cannot run from your feelings, and when you try to shove them down, they eat away at you until finally they come out.  I guess I've kind of had it in my head that if I can last until we are married then it will just get easier as time goes on.  My conversation with Rochelle made me realize that that is not how it works.  We might get through the first year fine, but eventually I will start asking myself the same questions again, and I still wont have any answers.
I'm not saying that we are done.  I guess I am saying that when you come back (since we wont be kissing) we need to take some time to address this.  "This" being, in our current state or maybe my current state, I don't think that a marriage would work.  Without some sort of change, I just don't see how it would be possible.

Is it Thursday again already?  I suppose it is. LET'S GET IT ON!

Well Xanga.  I have been experiencing a lapse in happiness as of late.  Truth be told, it is because of people.  It isn't that they (I will use the pronoun "they" not "we" because though I am a human, I am not currently annoying myself) are just of inferior quality.  I get that.  We all fall short, myself included.  Business as usual as far as that is concerned.  The problem is I am growing weary of hearing or reading about people longing for significance or desperately trying to find some fleeting validation that they are essentially a good person.  I think what really bothers me about both of those scenarios is that for a person to be fufilled in those regards, it means by definition that they feel superior to others.  Compared to the great expanse that stretches onward as far as we know, we are nothing.  Yet the very God that created the Universe cares about you individually.  If you don't find significance in that, I doubt that you ever will find it.  In the eyes of humans you may be a good person, but God knows better.  If you have any claim of "Goodness" it is because you have given control to God, and you are living off of His strength.  This goodness is not of you own doing, and so I will continue saying that you and I both are bad people.

  A similar problem is this penchant they have for being or at least being viewed as "unique".  What is it to be "unique" other than to be set apart from the rest of us?  It is downright depressing to see these people trying to find a way to be unique.  I thought the whole idea was to be yourself.  I don't want my message to be confused.  I have no complaint with the unique.  Those people who are just different due to how they were raised or other unknown factors are A-OK in my book.  These people that we trying to be unique and trying to be different though.  Don't you see that very desire to be different bonds you to your brother?  What is so wrong with the normal, regular you that you have to go looking for something else?  Again, I am not arguing against innovation, but to see someone doing something peculiar just because no one else is doing it... IT DRIVES ME UP A WALL.  If you really think it will be a worthwhile activity, then right on - more power to you!  I just think that the next time I see some kid doing something stupid to set himself apart from the crowd, I might actually have a stroke.  I cannot stress enough that I am not discouraging people from being unique, but rather I am trying to encourage people to be themselves no matter what that looks like.  Do not be afraid to deviate from the norm, but do not stray from the mainstream if that is truly who you are.  If someone wants to criticize you for having no personality or "looking just like everyone else", so be it.  When you are truly you, their critiques are meaningless.