Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Whenever I tell Someone About My Life, It Sounds Better Than It Feels

The other day I was having coffee with this girl. I met this girl through a friend of a friend. She was visiting in Colorado for a wedding and so my mutual friend called me to see if I could join them for some coffee. We met at Paris on the Platte and talked for a few hours before she had to go back to Portland. She talked about Portland and I talked about living in Denver. She then proceeded to ask me about my church and the house that I was a part of.

Before this question we had mostly made a lot of small talk, but here was the part where I began to get down to the nitty gritty, the real parts of my life. I described our church-our hopes, dreams and goals, what we had been doing, what we were planning to do. I told her about Habitat for Humanity. I spoke about our bigger, better best contest for Africa and our vision for the city. I told her about our community,living with 19 people- kids, families, married couples, everyone. I told her about how we shared resources, everything from food to automobiles. In the course of our talk I had an epiphany. Not an actual epiphany, but while I was talking, a part of my ear lobe began to hear the words that were coming out of my mouth, and my brain became really confused. It was then that I had a realization, an epiphany. But wait, I am still using the wrong word, I believe the correct word would be something along the lines of a distraught, bewildering realization. Whatever that word is I'm not sure, and I dont feel like looking in the dictionary for two hours so thats the best description I can come up with.

So anyways, as these grand, eloquent words were describing my so called epic, adventurous life, I became distraught. Distraught because I realized that I did not feel anything I was saying. I did not feel, I did not see, what my life was. I mean I was living it, and everything I said was true, but my physical, present life did not seem to match the spoken words. If I could somehow sit down with myself and tell me, to tell me about my life, I would be amazed at the content. But because I am in the middle of living it, nothing seems so epic, so adventurous, or glorious as it does when I tell others. If I was to read a book about everything our church and our house was doing, I would be amazed. But now that I am actually living in the story, it doesn't seem so great at all. It feels very monotonous, plagued with doubts, frustrations and daily events that are far from anything worth writing home about.

Because I am a very idealistic person, I become very depressed when life is not idealistic, when it is realistic and kinda shitty. I am not great living in the plains. I can handle the mountains, I can handle the valleys, but the plains just suck. there is nothing interesting and everything seems so dull. I mean there is the Buffalo, but most of them were wiped out thanks to my greatwhite ancestors from Europe who came to this land to convert and conquer. I do not do good with daily grinds, hourly responsibilities and tasks. They are just so boring; but necessary at the same time, which makes it even more unbearable, like watching Nsync at the Super Bowl; two activities I don't like watching separately, let alone together. Daily life resembles nothing from the movie 300. It doesn't resemble any movie, because to have a movie, you at least need some kinda plot and my life feels like there is no plot at all. As of right now, I am not winning the race, beating the villain, or getting the girl. I am doing yard work and washing dishes. I am waking up with less sleep than insomniacs and hoping that one day this will all be worth it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

levi, i sort of know how you feel.

i wanted life out here to be radically different...

and it is in a way, but it's certainly not glamorous.

it was strange being the last one to know;

waking up and finding out that you're moving.

i know you need to figure some shit out.

i've got a lot of things to sort out too.

i just wanted you to know...

that while everyone here pretends to be okay...

and makes jokes about you abandoning us...

i'm really sad to see you go, but wish you the best!

sorry if it's weird that i left this in a comment...

instead of telling you in person.

i just figured you're probably overwhelmed...

and didn't need another person bothering you.

much love - cody