The Simple Life.....

It's been a while, and I admit, I'm not a big fan of the blogsphere because I think as a society we are already burgeoning with narcissism. And there's the additional concern that because I work in a judicial and politically-neutral atmosphere, anything I say out here can and may be used against me someday.

But, then, I appreciate the creative element that blogging lends towards the effort to keep a record. That it is available anywhere I can access the ether, and that it will challenge me to articulate my thoughts more perceptively and accurately than were I to just keep them in my head.

Left to its own devices, the mind will wander to the age old questions.... Why am I here? What is my purpose? and what does this all add up to in the end? No... this is not a Christian come-on, but the questions I face daily. Questions, ironically, which I spryly answered as a 22 yr old missionary in Brazil, and which I now realize I couldn't possibly have understood at the time. I thought I knew the answers then, but now, here, ten years later, I am faced with them again repetitiously in my own right. Rote and memorized answers fail to satisfy the buds of my heart, which reach for something to sate the palate of unmet expectations and a life I never planned for. Could it be that the life I now know is a flavor more delectable than that I would have imagined for myself? Does the routine of my existence abate spice? Obedience deplete taste? Or is the two-story, four single girls, a guinea pig and five bikes in the garage lifestyle equate to the tastiest quart in the proverbial freezer? I don't know the answer to that, but this I do know---I am tired of being alone.

I am ready to share life, its pitfalls, horrors, pains, and triumphs, with someone else. I yearn to argue, fight, agree with, muse over, admire, and detest......someone. I wonder why it is I have to this point chosen a life of solace. I say "chosen" because I believe I am alone mostly because of my own decisions, my own misgivings, and my own choices. Sure "it takes two to tango", and I've nominated "us" more than once, only to be left broken-hearted. Darnit...But honestly, let's face it, I'm alone because that is the life I have chosen.

I once read that great love and great achievement involve great risk. Thus far, I have kept a short neck, and stayed in on that limb.

funny.....this isn't where I intended to go at all when I started typing. I was going to write about my wish to live a life without feeling. How life would be better devoid of encounter and anguish, pressure, or choice. To be a robot, ahhhhh now that would be the simple life. Oh, but no. God wouldn't have it that way, and luckily I wasn't an adherent of that design in the initio either.

So, from today, I think I make the decision to share. To share my life, and to share the lives of others. To find contemporaries, to serve others, and love them where they stand and as they are. Unlike the 22 year old who confidently answered those questions years ago, today I seek my answers in the space between, between the lines of experiences and heartaches that come from living life WITH others. I will let them fill the blanks I cannot answer, give purpose I cannot quite see, and bring flavor to a life otherwise wasted, routine, selfish, and bland.

It may not be the rainbow sherbet I've always chosen...but what's to say I won't love that awkwardly green pistachio?