A hall of mirros and life stands still

Deciding on how to begin my adult life is difficult, for lack of a better word. I could just say yes or no and get it over with. Just decide that this is the opportunity for me or that I absolutely can’t do it. I’ve done a lot of research in the last days to try and give me some justification one way or another. The thing is… I have a lot pulling me in both directions and I am completely unable to decide.

Life is. How’s that for a philosophical load of crap? Life is fluid motion. Its a river rushing down a mountain side. Its a quiet stream on a hazy day. Its a trickle in a water spout after a heavy rain. Its a stagnant pond growing moss. Its the ocean at high tide. Its the under-toe through some rocks. Its the riptide before a coming storm. Its a torrent through the night, never relenting…

Imagery aside… life is many things. For a while, I thought myself to be pretty mature. Not to any spectacular level mind you, but the last few years have taught me a lot of things about life and myself. Things that I didn’t want to learn, things that I probably tried to protect myself from which made them that much harder… Resisting the path God wants me on isn’t a good thing… The last week has shown me how truly immature and unprepared I really am. Even living life on my own, supporting myself in college has been a protected environment. Worse, my life is standing still waiting for something to happen… but everything looks the same.

Life is a long winding road with endless hills…

… and it seems I’m now on the up swing…

First, to my grandfather: He was a man who could hold a grudge like none I ever knew, but his heart was bigger than any I’ve met. No man is perfect, and so he never tried… he only ever tried to be the man God made him, and that he did well. I have done my grieving and some pain remains, but I know I’ll see him again one day and that gladdens my heart, if only a little. My family has been torn by the actions of his late wife, so now I ask that you pray for my family, that they find peace… and maybe some justice.

I’m feeling a lot better now. Theresa drove up from Denison, Keith from Columbus, Mike and Red from Cleveland, even March came completely unexpectedly. The force of their support and friendship washed away some of the pain and I was able to talk about things a bit more freely.

So… exciting news… Cisco has offered me a full time position… I have a choice of four different locations:
San Jose, California (too far away)
Boxborough, Massachusetts (near Harvard and Boston)
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (kinda boring)
Richardson, Texas (too far away)
I have about a week to decide which location I want and then I have about 4 weeks to accept or decline the final offer… which I don’t know if I can do given the starting salary, options, and benefits they’re offereing…

27-Aug-2007

I’ve tried to make a post about 3 times today… somehow I keep coming off as some pretentious, self pitying, and possibly self loathing person…

I have a strange hollow feeling with me always right now. I feel incredibly isolated and distant from everything. I want to talk to people but I get annoyed at my phone even ringing and I can barely stand being on the phone for more than 30 seconds. Even when I’m at work it feels oddly alone. I’m flying home for my grandfather’s memorial service on Friday… hopefully being around my family and Theresa again will allay some of these feelings.

Looks like its my turn to syphon off some sympathy.

At 7:10 this evening, I received a call from my mother… My grandfather, the man who was as much a father to me as my dad for many years, passed away this morning at 11AM. I thank God his pain is over, but wish I had more time with him.

18-Aug-2007

For a couple years or more I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out where a certain scene was from… All I could remember was a very “somber” (you’ll understand why thats in quotes in a second) moment when a computer announces that a ships auto destruct was activated and the voice was echoing through the ship. For a while I thought it was from Star Trek: First Contact… no go… so I thought it might have been a TNG or Voyager episode… no joy… Turns out… it was a scene from Space Balls. That is almost depressing… and very disappointing.

I am going to rant about people (that is to say teenagers and twenty-somethings) for a minute. The average person (in my unqualified and probably inexperienced opinion) has a couple qualities that they exhibit to the outside world (of course if you ask them they’ll deny and their friends will have “no idea” what you are talking about):
1.) Conceit: I have no idea how so many people actually believe that the sun shines out their own sphincters. If what they thought was true… well we could save a lot on electricity for lighting…
2.) Woefulness: Apparently most people have problems worse than everyone else. And even for the people that realize that their problems aren’t on the epic playing field, their problems are still somehow catastrophic, unmanageable, and completely depressing to the point that no one can help or understand.

I realize I am no treat. I tend to be blunt (sometimes verging rude), arrogant (although I think that is deserved), and a bit reserved… but at least I realize that the other 6.6 billion people exist (and could give a damn about me) and I own my own problems without trying to guilt out or otherwise siphon off sympathy from every living thing around me.