06 - "Nothing Nice to Say"

It's been just over two months since I've shared anything substantial. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first one was intentional, and that's the one I will address right now.

After my last post, life continued to spiral downward. School classes and finances for them got mixed up. A few friends decided that they weren't anymore. I was living on the floor of a closet. I packed up everything [again], still not having a long term plan. My car was broken into and everything except my clothes and guitar were stolen out of it. I started deepening a much desired friendship that abruptly ended and disappeared, still with no explanation. I'm still getting multiple inquests about my personal life because people won't stop talking about me [gossiping] behind my back. I still haven't heard anything clearly from God, but I've not given up yet. And as of right now, just about everything that I own fits into a large duffel bag. That is if I actually owned a large duffel bag.

My entire life. In a bag on my shoulder.

….

So, all of that said, I haven't offered much of an update for two months. Why? Because I decided to try to do everything I could to not be publicly negative. Kind of a spin on the whole “if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.” Personally, I don't understand this as simply not uttering mean words. It means... say nice things. Say productive things. Follow Ephesians 4:29. I've not been denying life. I've just been trying to put it into perspective and only give way to what should be given way to, to only dwell on that which is good, despite things getting worse.

For example, I remember vividly exiting my sister's apartment with her, prepared for a long 900 mile drive, only to find my car window smashed in and my clothes strewn about it. My sister was shocked. And I... I did what I do. I started assessing the situation and cleaning up. After all, we still had 900 miles to drive. We got everything fixed up as best we could, climbed into the car, and then it happened. The one thing I was fighting – I broke down in front of my sister. It was less than a minute, and all I remember was me choking out the words “God, what next?” and soon after hearing my sister timidly say, “Oh, Chris... please don't cry....” I believe it was the first time she'd actually witnessed this phenomena since we were little kids. And so I stopped, and that was that. A few minutes later I was making her laugh. She laughed awkwardly... but she laughed.

Seem negative so far? There is a point to all of this. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all? All of that what has been stated here is necessary in order to comprehend this: Things are better now. Not because they actually ARE better – because they aren't. But they will be, and in spite of everything, I know that. And I'm thankful for the lessons I'm learning.

My name is Chris. I'm 25 and after years of not truly understanding the following words, I can honestly say: I have lost [almost] everything. I'm okay with that. I'm ready to live life with next to nothing, and am. I don't want to say nothing because that's simply not true. I am rapidly learning what very, very few things in life are important. And the truth is: Those things are all I need.

More importantly: They are all I want.