Discouragement

I feel a tinge of discouragement running through my veins. A torture-filled symphony filling the caverns of my soul that were once overflowing, yet now are found empty and echo-filled, lifeless, numb. I feel drained of the creative breath that I so long for. It is as if time has stopped. Or at least the time in which my dreams have dwelt in the past. My realities are swiftly passing by, with every blink; yet remain crippled through every mundane moment that shoots past my weary eyes. They have become some blurry, my vision so unclear. I now possess the innate ability to flee from every aspect of focusing only to dwell in the craziness of my procrastination and laziness.

This must be defeated. This battle must be fought and must be won. Victory is the only option or this creative life shall surely die away into nothingness. I’m sick and tired of the lists, of the worthless to-do’s that never gully get done. I have no excuse. There is enough time within my day. I waste so much time due to my own sheer laziness or dwelling in the other extreme of keeping myself busy enough that my soul becomes satisfied with auto-pilot. Numbness ensues. I know that I am the only one that stops me. What else do I know? Two things. That I was made to love and that I was made to create. Music. People. Art. I must not give up within this journey. Even if day in and day out, I must force myself out of bed and to my work desk, to speak to people of all things dental and finance, if only to carry the hope within me that the creative lies on the other side of the work day. Creativity. Creative freedom. Every moment within that realm counts far more than I often realize. Every detail and minute bears the weight of all the moments that will fall after it.

It must not be about “making it” or “getting my stuff out there.” That should never be my intended goal. But, will I be able to look back someday upon my life and marvel at all of the people I met along the way, all of the moments that were captured in every photograph, and all of the songs that we etched into the sound waves over the years? My goals are not easy. They are not simple. I know very well that I will not awake tomorrow and have it all figured out and set in the course I would desire. I must start small. If I don’t, I know that I will hardly even begin. I mustn’t get discouraged. This path is not for the faint of heart. And it is what I have chosen.

One day at a time. One moment at a time. One detail at a time.

Quitting is never an option.

Hands

Is one what one creates?

Or does one create what one is?

Does our success come from our progression in life or in the moments of peace when all rests in silence?

Are my hands building and creating something of worth or a waste of time?

Can these beat up and calloused hands create to make a difference in this broken world? Can they help mold light into the darkness and realities of this life? Can these hands bring about change? Are these hands willing to take that cause and run with it?

Or shall they simply do what they have always done, what they have always been told to do, what’s safe, and predictable?

These hands long for freedom and flow, for the unknown and the untouched, the unseen; for the light and the beauty that can be found in this world when one takes the time to breathe and rest, and also to create and do.

Our hands tell our story. Through every scar and scrape, every ring or lack there of, every inked message or undecipherable, scribbled note and to do. Every nail chipped and every unkempt cuticle.

These hands represent my drive, my ambition, my hope, my dreams.

Every calloused finger significant of every chord pressed and then strummed. Every note left to echo in the crevices of our longing souls.

Every patch of dry, tattered skin reflective of every latte created and sold, of every dish washed and dried.

Or the way a dent has permanently formed where my pen does rest and sway, as words scatter a blank page and paint a picture with words from the longing well of my aching soul.

Or the ring that rests upon my left hand, never leaving, never absent. Always there to remind of commitment to love, to true love, the love that changes people, the love that breaks barriers and lives only where grace and restoration do dwell.

These hands mold themselves to the curves and shape of a camera. They are part of the process in which one seeks to capture a moment in time, to freeze a piece of existence that is not meant to ever be forgotten. The open and the close of the shutter is the way in which we can begin to see all of our world.

With every scrape and every scar,

with every callous and scribbled to do….

These hands are a small part of a much larger story.

A story that will change the world.

A story that is far bigger than any of us.

But together, these hands…

These hands will change the world.

Random Inspiration…

I’m absolutely in love with random trips to the thrift stores around town.

Just the other day, I discovered this sweet jacket for 13 bucks.

And I’ve created a display of some of my prints. They are a constant encouragement of why I do what I do.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working through this book. It’s a 12 week course all about finding your creativity once again. It is nothing short of inspiring! I wake up everyday so excited to just create. I have so many new goals floating around in my head and heart lately!

Check it:

<The Artist’s Way

Some current goals…

1. Fix my Protools rig and start recording again.

2. Get out of debt.

3. Thrift Stores!!

4. Start a full fledged photography business.

5. Business cards

6. Play atleast one show a month.

7. Visit Portland

8. Read lots!

9. Update my photo equipment and macbook.

10. Learn lead guitar.

11. Actually master the art of the latte!

So many things, and so little time.

I love my life.

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” Chekhov

Dear L-town……

Why the intense silence? It is a silence that has crept into my bones, as a ghost or a shadow of what once was that will never live to be seen again. Why no words now? Why the dropping off of all communication, of all hope, of all light into this darkened world?

I fear your opinion of my consequence, of my decisions, of my move. I fear that you have the wrong idea of my reason for leaving, for escaping before I, myself, would have destroyed everything and all that I had left in my aching bones. If I had stayed, if I would have endured, and continued to burn in that place, I would have been reduced to nothing. I would have been brought to the place of choosing, the path of light and the path of darkness; my heart knows which pathway I would have chosen.  I was still choosing the darkness, still aching for the light once again, and realizing that all would never be the same.

Which is why I had to run.

Which I why I had to return back to the edge of all beginnings and start over.

Yet, I fear you believe that I left in the wrong way.
That I was running for all of the wrong reasons.
That I burned so brightly, only to awake one day in May and leave it all behind.

I pray that you understand my decision. That your heart, your mind, and your soul will grasp the reasons in which I have not returned to stay. That you could understand that one-day I shall return and I hope and pray that we shall still be friends.

I only wish I didn’t wake with all of these questions, these unanswered phone calls, these emails that you have left unopened and unanswered.

I only wish that you would know how much I cherish the seasons in time that I spent walking upon your ground, creating within your broken walls, and embarking upon the era that changed me forever. I shall never be the same and no thing and no one shall ever replace you.

Yet you remain silent.
And I wait in the silence.
I wait broken and torn.
Yet, I also wait in a place where I am no longer settling or destroying myself.

I am happy.
My life is beautiful.
And none of it would be so if I had never experienced life with you.

And, one day, when I return, I hope that all is not lost and the shadows and the silence will be nowhere to be seen.

I have not forgotten you, yet why have you forgotten me?

I wait in the silence.
Can you hear me?

Words

You learn to speak by speaking,

to study by studying

To run by running,

to work by working.

And just so,

you learn to love by loving.

Begin as a mere apprentice

And the very power of love

Will lead you to become a master of the art.

-St Francis of Sales

….more words to come. There is much burning inside of my heart lately, good things…..

I’m Engaged!!!

I have never smiled as much as have been these past few days. So much has happened, so many things so unexpected, so many things that I have only dreamed of yet never lived through.

My entire life has taken a turn for the better in these past few months. I have never felt more like myself, more alive, and more encouraged to embark upon the calling upon my life than I have in these passing weeks.

For those of you that know me well and know the past few years of my life realize that this is a complete change from the darker season that I found myself in this time last year. I was influenced and sucked in to a culture and relationship that only began to destroy every single bit of my soul, every dream that my heart ever possessed, and every desire to be the person I knew I was called to be and to become.

I now can look back and realize that I was supposed to go through all of that. To be broken. To lose so much. To walk through the process of grace and forgiveness. To actually see the picture of redemption played out in every moment of my life and before my very eyes. I don’t think I ever really had a grasp upon what Christ actually sacrificed for me upon the cross, until I had begun to fall away from all I had ever known and walked away. He never left. He was by my side the entire time, holding me through the pain, being there even when I wanted nothing to do with all of it. He was there when I was trying to get as far away from him as possible because I knew how far I had fallen.

And walking away from that dark season has brought me into a season of so much unexpected light. So much joy. So much laughter. So many desires and dreams that laid so dormant for so many months.

I am living fully alive.

Fully awake.

In the midst of all of the healing…. I met my soulmate. I never quite knew what to expect about the relational side of my life. For I had screwed up just about everything in that area of my life and had lost a  lot of belief in all of it.

But then Ryan came into my life.

At the very moment when I needed to meet him the most.

My life will never be the same.

We, together, are the picture of the grace and love of God.

And on Sept. 27, 2008, he asked me to be his wife.

We were at Red Rocks seeing Sigur Ros (the best band ever!). Through certain connections, we ended up sitting in the very front row center. We had the best seats in the house, 9,000 people behind us and the band so close I could hear everything that went on. I couldn’t believe it. I wish I could have brought my camera in, but wasn’t allowed.

Then next thing I know, Ryan is on one knee and proposing! In front of 9,000 other people.

I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe waking up every morning now and realizing that it all isn’t a dream, that I WILL spend the rest of my life with this man, and that the only way I got to this place was because God brought both of us together. God knew all along. His hands were upon our hearts even before we knew what he was doing.

I’m never turning back now.

Coffeehouses, Chord Charts, and Craziness

I need to just take a moment and just…….
BREATHE.

Right at the moment when I thought my life couldn’t possibly get any more busy, it did.

Right at the moment when I thought my dreams had been destroyed forever, I found hope.

Right at the moment when I thought I could no longer get myself up to face the mundane, I discovered once again the extraordinary.

Right at the moment when I thought I would never find love again, I ran right into, at the most unexpected of times.

And now at this very moment, I can yell to the masses with the utmost confidence that….

I LOVE MY LIFE.

For me to be able to get to the place to say that is only by the hands of a redeeming, forgiving, loving God. I would not be anywhere near the place I am today if God hadn’t taking me up out of the pit, dusted me off, and brought me head first into a life of craziness, extraordinary opportunities and relationships, and living through days of light that I only dreamed of in my darkest of times.

I’ve always been the kind of person to point out all that is going wrong, all that I would like to change, all of the things that need patched up and tossed aside. I’m the melancholy musician that always wrote the songs after the breakup, only to walk around with a mentality of the glass half full and only my loneliness and frustration as my comfort.

Yet, now it is different. I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to be where one should be, to be doing what you created to do, to be able to live out all of the things that have burned so intensely in my heart for so many years. It’s as if all of the years of wandering and wondering have finally brought me to this place, the place of home where I thought I was going backwards, yet in all reality would discover the life I was meant to live. I am still restless, I still get lost at times, yet not as much as I once did. I still know I will face change and difficulty, yet my eyes and heart have been opened to so much more.

Now my task at hand is to organize and simplify through all of this craziness. Everyday is spent sorting through my schedule, over and over again, in hope of landing on something that doesn’t overlap all of the things I need to get done and to narrow down my to do list to something manageable. I feel like I want to do everything. Everything I am doing is something that I love, every aspect a different part of myself and my dreams.

An update (since I hardly ever blog because I hardly can sit down and write our all that is burning inside of me….) ……

I just gave my two weeks notice at the coffee shop I was working at. Due to many things and the fact that I finally got a job at the shop I wanted, I will be free from the coffeehouse I have spent many hours of frustration and even joy at. It has been a good run, yet I am so thankful that it is slowly coming to an end. The new place is far more of a good fit for me. I am overjoyed at the opportunity to work there.

I am playing shows again, with a new band and no idea where the future will lead me. I’m alright with that for now. My days of music filled excursions have lessoned since Portland, yet I still get a taste every once in a while of what once was. Not recording currently is killing me, yet I also have hardly had the time to pen the songs of my heart in these passing months. That season always comes and goes for me, I just have to be alright with the times when it is not the moment when I get to release the songs I’ve held onto for months and months.

I’m working at church again. I don’t think I’ve felt this alive in a long, long time. Even in the midst of chord charts, file folders, and far too much coffee, I am finding my feet again. I had been so derailed from the last season of my life, my heart had been so broken, and my soul so beaten. I find hope every time I go to work, every time I sit at my desk, every time I sit at the piano on Sunday. I am finally free. My life has become such a picture of redemption and hope. I am reminded of it every time I am there.

I just want to wake up everyday and create something.
To build something.
To endeavor upon all of the relationships that have been placed in my life.
To find the joy even in the maintenance of life.
To take time to breathe every once in a while.
I can’t do everything. I’m slowly realizing that and I am taking steps towards getting to the place I absolutely need to be.

I’m just loving life and seeking more focus in all of it
Yet, it still continues to become more and more beautiful with every second.

“For us to get focused, we need to make adjustments.”
-McManus.

Welcome to my current existence of craziness.

Restlessness

So many unknowns weigh so heavy upon my restless frame in these quickly passing days. I go to sleep so restless, then advance to being haunted within my dreams, only then to wake up and start the battle all over again in the early hours of every morning. Over every cup of coffee, during every early morning drive to work before the rest of the world has even opened up their eyes, in the silent moments when I sit at my porch contemplating the mysteries of my heart I battle with one unending phrase….

WHERE DO I NEED TO BE?

Six simple words. Yet they have morphed into the most difficult question I have ever needed to sort through in my heart and my mind. This question has no desire to remain silent. I’m to the place where it isn’t even the question of what I WANT, but what I NEED to be doing with myself. I want to make a difference in this world, to look beyond myself and my doubts, to actually be able to touch the lives of the people I come into contact with daily.

I know that I have not been called to live life comfortable, that I need to take risks, to learn, to discover, to breathe, to break. Yet, all feels like time is standing still, never ceasing, yet never advancing into a break of clarity and hope. I am left only with unanswered questions begging for solutions and an unsettled heart longing for something more. I KNOW THERE’S MORE.

I keep trying to think of the last time I was truly happy….

My last day in Longview. The ocean breeze upon my face, the looks of the faces of my friends. All of realizing that in a few short hours our existence for the last few years would make a drastic change. We all stood out in the parking lot at Starbucks, saying our goodbyes, giving our hugs, as the tears formed in the corner of our eyes. Then I somehow made it to the point of driving away. That was the most difficult moment.

And then the flood came. All of the tears I had held back for so many weeks finally broke.

There are moments lately when I am greatly torn between two worlds: here and the northwest. It’s not the risk of moving that frightens me, it’s the thought of making a poor decision and forsaking being in the place where I need to be. I want to be in the northwest, yet I still remain unsettled. I wake each day only to present my heart with my little lists of pros and cons in hope of finding the answer somehow on the pages of my moleskin notebook. It pains me greatly to think that so much of my decision making is based upon money, or the lack there of.

I just want to know. I have no desire to make a mistake and continue on questioning everything. This past year has been one saturated with some many decisions, some poor, some right, some still unknown. I would hope now to have some idea as to where I need to be.

I have no idea.

I will rest on this very porch everyday and ask these questions until the fateful answer is revealed to my seeking heart. I desire God’s will. I desire to know where I can make the most difference and throw myself wholeheartedly into that cause and destiny.

I have no desire to continue to plan my way into all restlessness.

I believe there will be a day where I will just make the decision. A firm yes or no. Then I shall take the risks and not look back.

Today is not yet that day.

Until the Open Road Leads Me Home….

So don’t get down
Good things come when you stop waiting around
Good things come when you stop looking
Don’t get down
You’ve just got to stop looking
(Kathleen Edwards, Good Things)

I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of waiting lately; of always being in some mode of preparation but time just inches by slowly as every moment passes. The possibility of only pacing through the days is always there, quickly whispering to my heart- it’s ok, it will always be like this, so relax, don’t dream, don’t live, just live with how it all is.

That is not me. The past 7 years of my life were not lived so that I could just become some lazy stump of a human being that works at a coffeehouse, hangs with the guys, and wakes up to the do the same thing all over again. I’m trying to intensely break myself of all cycles in my life, that is one of them. Being home, I have every opportunity to just float through life, doing all the things that people think or feel I should be doing and in turn shutting of so many of my hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

I am young. I have my entire life ahead of me, yet as of late I wake with this idea that this is it for me. This is far from it. This season is a launch pad of preparation, restoration, and intimacy with God. Once I realize that, pieces begin to fall into place and my current boring existence has a mission, a passion, a purpose. No matter how many minutes I take living frustrated about being here and not where I would truly want to be.

Good things come to those who stop waiting around.

I’m trying to be productive in my waiting. To do good even though time inches by me. Having faith in something doesn’t mean just sitting on our rear ends hoping that God brings opportunity into our lives.

Faith is doing. Living. Breathing. Discovering. Preparing. Restoring.

Every single day brings me closer to where my heart longs to be. Everyday I am broken more into the person I was called to become. Everyday I am frustrated with where I am at and long to change all of these things that rage inside of me. Everyday I miss friends in my life with such intensity that I don’t know at times how to make it to the next minute.

I’m learning.
I’m writing more songs than I have in a long time.
I’m finally reading all the books I have never had time to read.
I’m building the church, through one friendship at a time.
I’m saving every single penny I make for the next season in my life.
I’m getting rid of so many things that I don’t need in the waking realization that less truly is more.

When I finally realize what is in front of me and all around me, my heart wants to burst at the seams. But, this realization only comes at the point when I stop giving up and make an effort.

I’m finding…

You cannot grow alone. I seek community far more than I ever imagined possible. And I feel like I haven’t found it quite yet.

I am not yet the person I want someone to fall in love with.

Change is still the only thing that endures.

I still have a lot of breaking to do from the last season of my life so that I can live fully into the next.

God is the only constant in my life. It is Him I will hold on to.

I will get through this. Through every new song, every new cup of coffee, every friendship that has stood the test of time, every moment I spend in the presence of God.

Until the open road leads me home.

Cycles

I have determined that I am a creature of habit, especially in relation to the coming and going of each and every season of my restless existence. I live everyday, waking in only cyclical reaction to the previous hours before I had closed my eyes the previous night; pacing throughout the next day only anticipating the coming of the next.

 

I’ve had a lot of time to think lately. The silence of my life has been a continuous ghost, haunting me as I seek to find so many answers that have been birthed as only questions in my heart and mind, never actually maturing into a solution to the problems and priorities at hand.  All of my demons have been rearing their ugly heads into the course of my days, for I am no longer busy enough to ignore their whispers or just simply walk away.

 

My life has been a series of repeated circles, a cycle of events in which I should have learned my lesson the first time yet fail to see the problem I am placing myself in until it is too late and I have run the same course once again. Every June for the past 4 years of my life has been the beginning of a new season, the beginning of a time period in my life that I had only counted to, dreamed, or even spontaneously stumbled upon just through the every day and being in the right place at seemingly the right time.

 

Case and point.

 

June of 2005.

 

Playing in a band with some of my best friends, record contracts in front of very eyes after the first show we ever played, the shows are lining up, the record is being recorded.

 

And I walk away from it all, moving to Washington and thus leaving my heart wrenched with the dreadful loss of some of my best friends and creative companions due to the fact that I held the solid belief that I need to go.

 

And I did.  And I don’t regret it. For one moment.

 

June of 2006.

 

I’ve hit a dead end, all seems hopeless and the only thing I desire to do is to return home, in longing thought that the creative realms I once dwelt in still exist and have not changed. Yet, then the entrance of a boy shifted my entire world. One that opened my eyes to the kingdom of God and the aspect of giving myself wholeheartedly to that call.

 

It was the most amazing summer of my life thus far. I have so many memories that I will cherish forever.

 

Then it came to an end and I was broken more than I have ever experienced before.

 

I have loved fearlessly and will love again.

 

June of 2007.

 

Enter in Boy #2. This time with an entirely different allure, at a time when I was at my loneliest. And I lost so much of myself in the process. Even the good memories tend to be continuously overtaken by all of the bad and all of the regret. That summer was one of many ups and downs, leaving me to pick up the pieces of every aspect of my life. I had been broken down to literally nothing. And this last fall and winter were some of my darkest, most growing times that I have ever faced in the 21 years of my life.

The sound of restoration still rings in my heart.

 

June of 2008.

 

I move home, in an attempt to run away from all that I had endured, yet get to the point of realizing that was not the best decision. I am lonely. I am back at the beginning. I have never been so threatened and encompassed by all of the unknown in the everyday. I fear not using the education I just went through for four years of my life, or that the music will somehow die off into only distant whispers in my past, or that I will forever pace in the town I once called my home.

 

I am in the cycle once again. Yet, I desire a much different outcome. I want to not go through the hurt anymore, the decisions of getting myself into relationships that I need not even approach, the days in which I only pace into the next.

 

I was not made to stay here forever, only to work in a coffeehouse and wake up and do the same thing all over again.

 

I need the ocean breeze against my face, the sound of the creative ringing in my eardrums, the view of the sunset on the banks of the river, the smell of the coffee and the taste of the sushi, the people that have forever changed me and been a massive part of my life.

 

I want to live. I want to move back to the place in which I have now deemed as my home, the place in which I went through so much hurt, but was also brought back into to life once again.

 

No more circles. No more regrets.

No more living torn in two different directions.

 

Here I got two ways to go, and heaven only knows, I’ve been trying….

 

Sidenote: This song has just ripped me apart. I only hope to write something like this at some point.