Ebb and Flow People

 

Daily something is revealed to me that helps me realize that I know nothing about how the world works and that I know increasingly less about myself, and my place in this world. This feeling of minuteness is nothing new to me, yet this time something is at peace inside me, and I may be finally accepting the fact that I am small, and that I am naive. It feels so good knowing this and being okay with it; don't get me wrong, I want to improve it, change it and grow, but now I am comfortable that it takes time. I am growing patient with myself, and learning to love learning. Its all okay. There is no one more beautiful than yourself. Its not deep, its not even smart, but its me experiencing life for me. . . Not just reading about others experiences and empathic with them throughout the "feet in another's shoes" philosophy.
The ebb and flow of life amazes me. Working at Jason's Deli more than 6 months now, it becomes so easy to get attached to people. This summer Jason's has become my home. I've been working more than 40 hours a week, and these people have become my family. The managers are my big brothers, and fathers. My coworkers are my sisters and brothers. I love them each so dearly. My twin sister works with me, so of course we fight all the time (you know the bickering that lasts 10 mins and the next thing you know we are laughing our heads off together). We've had people come and go, and each time its so difficult, some times being harder than others. Adrian, Jen, Kevin, KC, and many others who I cannot even think of have left since I began in January. Well, the people who came in to replace them are moving on now too, and I have grown to love them so much. I want to scream "Its not fair! Why does life have to always be changing!?" Jason is moving on to the University store, Mike is moving up at our store. I am happy, I guess, that Mike is staying, but I really would rather have Jason stay. Nick is finished with his training and is going back to his store in Huntersville at the end of the week when Jason leaves. It's going to be so different. As employees we are all going off to our pre-summer lives. Elsa is off to Chapel Hill, Clay and Lex are off to Appalachian State, and I am going to Queens University right down the road from Jason's so I don't have to leave, but it is difficult. You know these guys go through so much; Jason began as a delivery driver here in Charlotte, then some where in the story became a catering manager at a Jason's in Raleigh where he met Nick who was a driver going to NC State, and then came here to Charlotte where he began as a manager, and Nick about a month ago came to train at our Jason’s and is leaving to go back to Huntersville, and Jason is going to University. These guys have been all over. I don't know how they keep uprooting and moving. I know its not that far, but still. You'd never know how much certain people mean to you, until they leave. I don't know why I have such a problem with people leaving and saying goodbye. I know good things continue to happen; if Adrian hadn't have left then Jason couldn't have come. I just get content with life and don't want it to change.
All I can do is pray that I get to run into them later in life, or get to build new relationships with them all over again later.

Dear Jason, Dad, Teachers, and Ebb and Flow People,
I can't even begin to describe the fun, the laughs, and the games we had so much fun playing. I have learned so much from our relationships. The finger prints you left on my life will always remain evident and will continuously be apart of who I am and who I am ever developing into. I hope that somewhere down your dusty, bumpy path of life my own path may have the pleasure of colliding into it. I love you, and desire you to know how very much your life means to mine.
Forever and ever know that you have made a difference in my life. Your life is indescribable important. Your every breath is beautiful to me.
Love,
Hannah

Playing on My Ipod:

1.) Awakening
Sara Groves
2.) All these things That I’ve Done
The Killers
3.) Sailing
Christopher Cross
4.) Who I Am
Jessica Andrews
5.) Walk Tall
John Mellencamp
6.)What a Wonderful World
Kenny G & Louis Armstrong
7.)Tears in Heaven
Eric Clapton
8.)Let it Be
John Denver
9.) Sing Mary Sing
Jennifer Knapp
10.) Mother Father
Dave Matthews Band
11.) I Hear the Bells
Mike Doughty
12.)Twilight
Vanessa Carlton
13.) When I Look To The Sky
Train
14.)Hang On
Guster
15.)The Candy Man
Sammy Davis Jr.
16.) Chicago
Sufjan Stevens

Seventy times Seven

I remember forgiveness being so much easier than this. The pain is so much I can hardly stand it. My heart aches. My back hunches, and my neck is sore with tension.
Why has forgiveness gotten harder as I have gotten older?

I feel as if I give and give and give, and then, after I've given until I have nothing but my human body left, she takes that too. I want to scream, "JUST GET OUT OF MY LIFE!". I hate who I am and what I become when she does this to me. I want forgiveness to be easy, desperately I do, and most of the time it is, but with her, its so indescribably hard! I wonder how she could possibly be human. For nearly 18 years I have loved her with nearly every beat of my heart. When we were 8 and she was sent to Two East I was petrified for her. My heart . . . i cannot describe it. I feel weak just thinking about it. When she was taken again when we 14 half of me went with her. My love for her astounds me. My eyes are overflowing just thinking of her. For 10 months we wrote each other; she came home every 5 weeks and each time broke my heart. She wasn't doing any better. That place didn't help her at all. I could only think of her freezing feet in the tents on November nights, her toes curled. Oh, how I would have wrapped my warm blankets around her, and scratched her back. When she returned home and then left for days at a time, she took my heart then, too. Wild parties. Smoke spilling out from under her door. Powder residue on tables, and on credit cards. Bottles. Baggies. Missing money. My heart there too.
I love loving others. It blesses me in a way I can only let my Father describe. But at times it so burns from pain, so blinds me, so intoxicates me, that I feel I can hardly go on. I want her to know how much I love her, I believe in her, care for her. I want her to know how my heart screams to her. What is most painful, above any physical pain I have ever encountered, is knowing she knows the capacity of my love for her and in return, indifference. A pain words themselves, nor screams, or cries, can begin to communicate.
Everyone knows the words of St. Francisis of Assisi, when he says "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred, let me show love, where there is envy, pardon, where there is doubt, faith, where there is despair, hope, where there is darkness light, where there is sadness, joy, o divine master let me not so much seek to be consoled as to console, understood as to understand, to be loved as to love." How my soul so longs to be loved back, but isn't. I believe that is the hardest thing about forgiving her: forgiving her when I know she will only just go and do it again, and doesn't care how that effects me, and more importantly doesn't reciprocate love, affection, or gratitude. I have found that pride is an enormous participant. No matter how many times I feel walked over, pushed around, weakened, or left behind, I must remember that the only one with a love so perfect, so divine, to forgive me of my sin has, and does, and loves me so intensely, my love for Kate is barely a mark on the pages of the greatest love story every told. My love is far from perfect, and each time I fall from the blows, I get back up with a stronger love, and a desire to love her more and more.
I desire to show forgiveness as a child, unblemished, unscarred, and unburned. I desire to love more that I desire to be loved.

Playing on my Ipod:
1.) This Time Around
Helen Stellar
2.) Tasting Forgiveness
Robbie Seay Band
3.)Hands of Time
Groove Armada
4.)Hallelujah
Jeff Buckley
5.)Held
Natalie Grant
6.)Your Grace is Sufficient
Shane & Shane
7.)The Only Living Boy In New York
Simon And Garfunkel
8.)Five Iron Frenzy
SuckerPunch
9.)The Beautiful Letdown
Switchfoot
10.)One
U2
11.)Castles In The Sky
Ian Van Dahl
12.)Fireproof
Pillar
13.) One Pure and Holy Passion
Passion Worship Band
14.)God Bless America
Larry Wayne Morbitt
15.)Sea of Faces
Kutless