Footprints on the Moon

I’m going to attempt to write the post that I said I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to. But this blog is about me, and that’s where this comes in. Alot of things have changed for me in the last couple of years. I changed jobs, I started blogging in earnest, I moved into my own apartment, I made some of the most amazing friends I have ever had and I’m only sorry that they’re spread across the country.

In that same amount of time, there have naturally been negative changes. There are only two I want to talk about: I stopped going to church, and I’ve become a person that I don’t want to be. People who know me may or may not believe my next sentence, but I believe it to be true. I am not a nice person. I’m not trying to say that I’m just a completely nasty person who is incapable of being nice… I just mean, I am not the person I know I could and should be. There are days when people are grating on my nerves, and it’s all I can do not to growl out loud and I don’t recognize that person who is sitting at my desk. I was watching a service online from a couple weeks ago and the thing that sticks out in my head that Jason said that pertains to this is “That’s not what God looks like.”

I went to church tonight… for the first time (other than Christmas and special occasions) in about two years and I went alone. And I’m glad I did. It was a good thing, especially since I wasn’t completely sure I’d go until I actually got out of the car in the church parking lot. It’s been weighing on my heart for a couple days, and being there was a balm to my soul. If you’re not a church-going person, you won’t understand that sentiment, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Another thing that was said a couple weeks ago that I’m holding on to is “the past is past. We have to deal with now and move into the future.” My paraphrase, of course.

I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I don’t know what this means for the coming hours and days and weeks. I only know that it’s where I’m at right now. And it starts with having gone to church tonight. He asked me to, and I went.
Oh, remember the guy I said was easy on the eyes? Guess who ended up sitting next to me at church tonight? Listening to God is not without its rewards.

I didn’t post at all yesterday. I’ve been in a…. reflective mood the last couple days, and I’m still trying to formulate my thoughts on it, IF I want to post about it at all. But one thing I DID do yesterday was watch The Moment of Truth, after American Idol. It’s the show where people are hooked to a lie detector, and asked personal, potentially hurtful questions in the hopes of winning $500,000. I couldn’t look away. (Okay, I looked away long enough to set the VCR and go to bed, but I watched the rest first thing this morning.) It’s not the good kind of look away either, not really… more of a can’t look away from the horrendous train wreck sort of thing.

Take Catia. She was the wife of the first contestant. He walked away with no money, and she found out that he’s never used the internet to flirt with other women since they’ve been married. Great, right? Not so much… see, poor Catia ALSO found out that her husband has touched the women he works with longer than necessary, that he’d encourage her to have liposuction if she got a little bit pudgy, he hasn’t had children with her yet because he’s not sure they’ll be together for life, oh yeah, and that there is something that he’s done that would cause her not to trust him if she knew about it. Are these things that might be true for millions of men and husbands? Sure… but now the seed of doubt has been planted. She might have thought there were things that she didn’t know before, but now she KNOWS that there are things that she shouldn’t trust him about.

I don’t know. It’s an interesting idea. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded like a fun show to watch. The more I thought about it though, and now that I’ve seen it, I’m not so sure. I’m all for honesty, I’m just not so sure this is such a great venue for it. Reveal these intimate secrets about yourself and maybe you’ll walk away with a little cash. Or maybe you’ll have succeeded in nothing more than putting cracks into the foundation of the the most important relationships in your life.