Tales of a Secret Rockstar

Things are looking up for me.
I can't even put my finger on it, but I have this vague sense that I'm turning some kind of corner. It's something that I can't really see clearly, but it's there. Maybe it's still in the blurry distance. Or maybe it's bigger than I think it is. Either way, I find myself infused with this indomitable sense of hope. With this has come this realization that I'm generally a really happy person. Whenever people told me I was full of energy, I never quite believed them. But now I'm starting to realize how much energy I have. I pretty much want to dance around most of the time. It's crazy.
Crazy good, that is.

On a completely different note:
I've noticed two interesting trends in how I relate to girls.

1. I see many attractive girls on the average day, but somehow, they just don't stand out to me. They all seem plain somehow. To quote a First Past the Post song, "You look to me, like just another one of the girls." That's sort of what it's like for me. Every new girl that I see or meet, I think "another one of the girls." This is a hard concept to communicate. I still am attracted to girls of course. I think I've just started looking a little harder and a little deeper. Hopefully this is a good thing. All the people that I talk to say it is. I just don't care about "hot girls".

2. So, I have met girls that I think are attractive during this period. And the thing is, with girls that I do find attractive, I'm really awkward. This is a new thing for me. I've always kind of taken pride in my ability to talk to girls. But lately, when I talk to a girl I find attractive, all my coherence just goes out the window. It's so weird. I'm not one to do the whole "shy, stare at my shoes and mumble" as some kind of approach because I think girls like it. I just find myself doing that because I'm completely tongue tied. I seriously have nothing to say. It's intimidating. I'm not so sure if this is a good thing or not. But such is the trend in my life.

I drove my mom to meet my dad in Burnaby today.
We had a really good talked.

I told her some of the church related issues I'm working through.
She listened, then told me this (In true "Good Will Hunting" fashion):
"It's not your fault."
Seriously, that's what she told me. She said, "You have to realize that those people meant well, and their hearts were in the right place, but ultimately, they screwed up. And that's not your fault at all."
It makes so much sense.
I thought about it all the way home.
And I smiled.
I kind of feel like dancing.

What a great weekend.

So much happened.

I played drums for my friend Jon on Friday night at Maple Ridge CLA. It was great. It's funny that I did this about two days after the previous "angry CLA" post. But I was excited, because my friend Jon is awesome, and a brilliant musician. The music wasn't that great because we all showed up late and didn't really get to practice. But it was still much fun.

On the ride home we started talking about CLA, and most of things in the aforementioned post. And I don't know how it happened, but I just started spilling to him about all this stuff that happened to me while I was at that church. I didn't try to justify or hide anything. I just told him some things that I experienced. Crazy weird things. And here's the thing. He was like "Wow, no wonder you don't like the church. You've been burned really bad." And I was amazed. I guess the word for this is "validation." I never put much stock in it really, but it felt so relieving to have someone agree that it's okay for me to be hurt like that. Of course, we both know that I can't just stay angry and defensive, and I have no intentions of doing so. It was just such a relief to have those wounds acknowledged to be real and not invented.

I'm tired, that's all I have to say for now.

I just got back from the Ben Kweller concert.
That man is a rock and roll genius.
I wasn't sure how good he'd be.
He was incredible.

I met a cute girl tonight.
What really happened was that my friend Bryan helped me meet a cute girl tonight because I'm really shy.
I was standing beside her during the opening act.
I thought she was pretty cute.
I also thought that she was checking me out.

So for the main show we stood right behind her and her friends. I tried to talk to her at one point, but I wasn't very succesful.

After the show, I was standing around all awkward, trying to work up the courage to go talk to her. Finally, Bryan went over to her, introduced himself, and told her that his friend (me) thought she was adorably cute and wanted to talk to her. She said, "Well tell him to come talk to me." That took him by surprise, but he came and told me.

It took me about 15 minutes to work up the courage to actually go talk to her. But, with a little prodding from Bryan, I did. She was definitely cute, and definitely not 15. My introductory line was "I'm not very good at meeting new people." Apparently she is, because we had a good conversation. We talked about where we're from, what we do, etc. She works at Save-On. I told her I want to be a rockstar. She thought that was cool. She said she wanted to be a journalist. I thought that was cool. And she's cute.

It was an interesting night.
I think I gained a little confidence.
And she gave me her email address. . . .

Last night I worked with my friend Michelle. She has definitely taken over as my favourite person to work with. More about her momentarily . . .

So I've been reading Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz again. I've been really challenged by what he says about love. He talks about this realization that he came to, which is that we tend to use love like a currency or commodity. When people are useful or "valuable" to us, we give them love. When they are not, we either pity them, or simply don't like them. I think this is so true and so scary. I've been realizing how I withhold love from people because I think they should change, and I somehow think that they will want to change to earn my love. How ridiculous. Miller talks about an experience in his life where he was doing this to another church member. He decided to just love him unconditionally. When he did this, he says, "I felt like I had lost an enemy, and gained a brother." And the guy, feeling affirmed as a person, began to change and get more serious about God. Interesting.
So I tried this experiment last night. We have this ridiculously annoying guy who comes in. He's about my age, and he's just kind of creepy. Usually I'm really cold and short towards him. But today, as I was about to help him, I decided to be warm and inviting. Now granted we couldn't exactly be best friends, what with that sneeze guard forming a barrier between us, but seriously, things felt different. I don't even know if he was any different. Bit I felt different. It was fun to serve him. I may have even liked him. He seemed to respond to my attitude. It was cool. But I won't say it wasn't a little difficult. It's a humbling experience to just throw love around to anyone. I think I always expect people to measure up to my standards somehow.

Anyways, back to my friend Michelle. She is really cool. I want Michelle to know God. God really likes her alot. And we got to talk about God for an hour or so. It was incredible. I really enjoyed telling her about God. She asked me about Heaven and Hell, and I told her the truth. She told me about how she prays every night. I think that's pretty cool. She even prays for her cat who died. I told her that there's more to life, and to life with God, than where she's at right now. I told her to read the book of John. I hope she does. We didn't want to stop talking, but we had to work or something.
I want Michelle to know God.
I guess that's kind of a written prayer.