Sands through the hourglass

I have an absolutely beautiful girlfriend who loves me. Unfortunately, I am incredibly good at disbelieving that. It's not surprising--I'm not used to reciprocated attraction and I have a hard time keeping myself from thinking that God won't take everything I want away. Because of this, Michelle has felt like a ghost or a phantom or a memory of some future event because my mind has been entirely unable to accept that this is really happening.

The past few nights, we've been trying to figure out what exactly it might be that is keeping me from accepting this. We walked down to the river and talked for a long time. We both cried. It was good.

Tonight, she was no longer a ghost. She was real to me.

I'm not expecting the problem to just go away, but it's a start. And it's a good start.

I'm thinking about changing my band name. 'Nathaniel FitzGerald vs. the Industrial Revolution' is a bit cumbersome. And I've always had a hard time saying 'FitzGerald,' believe it or not. It's just hard to say for me. I'm thinking either The Automatic Pilot or The Human Autopilot.

Desperado

I'm coming to my senses.

Please, please, please be patient with me

I'm sick of trying to invent reasons why this won't work.

I've been living with my feet in two places lately. One foot placed in Chicago since December (and now more firmly set) was carrying most of my wait through this last semester, until everything with Michelle came around and taught me to accept life in the present moment. But now that school is over, I really don't feel like there's too much for me here--honestly (as silly as it might sound to say) just Michelle, who is really the only thing keeping me from looking too far forward.

We're going to Chicago this weekend to hang out with Kriss & Mellie (and...go to a comic book convention. My flatmate is a nerd). I think it will be good for me to see how Michelle and my life in Chicago might mix.
That, and it will just be tonsa fun, as all three of those people are, in themselves, a ton of fun.

Lord, thank you for everything that you have brought about. I'm sorry for ever doubting the goodness you had for me. I am sorry I still doubt it.

An Epic Yesterday and the Incessant Gnaw

Yesterday was one of the most eventful days of my life.

I went over to the Ferrises for lunch with Michelle, her mom (her dad was called away by something), dear Megan, Michelle's brother Steve, his wife Karin (who was having contractions every thirty minutes or so), and Little Manny, the beardless toddler, who I had finally met the day before in a mostly nude state (him, not me). After lunch, Michelle, Megan, and I took Manny to the park across the street, where we swung, played imaginary basketball, hung upside down, and were disappointed by a merry go round that only went around for a spin and a half before coming to a joy crushing halt, no matter how fast it was going when it was released.

After this, we dropped Megan off at the train station and then walked along the East Race (yes, we nearly always walk along the river, but this was in a different park) and people watched as we talked about many things.

Then, we went over to the home of the Grants, where we rendezvoused with Analiese and Grants Jonathan and Tyler to go to a private property reservoir where we had a lovely bonfire accompanied by my ghetto rigged boombox. Alysha came too. We had hotdogs in white bread buns. I pretended to throw Michelle in the water, then made her give me a piggy back ride.
That girl is amazing for handling me and all my weirdness.

After the bonfire dissipated, Michelle and I, still unexhausted from our adventures, drove down the Bremen Highway and pulled into a dark field and sat on the roof of my van and watched the stars and talked of many more things. While we were on the roof, her phone rings. Lo! It is her mother, calling to tell her that Karin is in the hospital! I jumped off my car and anticipated a drive to the hospital. She said we didn't need to go, so we just continued to talk inside my car. Then, her brother Ryan called, saying that he wanted to go to the hospital to see Steve & Karin and drop them off some snacks and magazines. We went to the grocery store quickly and then to the hospital, where Karin was feelin' fine on an epidural. She was wearing an oxygen mask because the baby's heartrate, shown on a monitor next to her bed, had been low. Beneath the monitor of the baby's heartrate was a monitor showing her contractions. We watched the line as it spiked higher and higher at more frequent intervals.
'Woah! That one's all the way to 100!' Steve said.
Karin turned to the screen, 'Really? Let me see!'
Epidurals are fine things, I'm told.

After about twenty minutes, Karin said, 'I think something is dripping on my leg. I think my water just broke.' How could she tell? She couldn't feel anything from the waist down. But, we got the nurse and went back to the Ferrises' house. We sat in Michelle's room for a few hours. Ryan found a story called 'Trimazon' that he had written (and never finished) in sixth grade and read Michelle and I select portions of it. Despite not being able to feel anything, Karin must have been right about her water breaking,because at three thirty in the morning, Dad Ferris walked upstairs to announce that she had the baby. We rejoiced, and I left.



This strange unhappiness started creeping over me on Friday. At first, I thought it was because I was out of town and missed Michelle--but when I saw her the next day, it wasn't satiated. Could I be unhappy with the way things have been going? Absolutely not. I couldn't be happier. Maybe I was just getting used to the idea that pretty soon, I will be away in Chicago, and that I hadn't really thought about that. Still, that wasn't it. I was talking with Michelle about it yesterday at the East Race, throwing these ideas out. She suggested that maybe I was just getting used to the relationship. Then, I think I got it.

I feel guilty.

Two years ago, I realized that I had been harboring this feeling that no matter what I wanted, God would never let me have it by virtue of teaching me contentment or something vague like that. Right after realizing that, the earthquake of whatever it was that I felt for Chelsea came, and I thought that God was then revealing to me what I wanted. Fifteen months of pursuit later, that feeling was only reinforced. How could I believe that God wants to give me what I wanted if He just spent fifteen months keeping it from me? I couldn't. I couldn't believe that. I still have a hard time believing that.

And so here I am with THE most amazing girlfriend in the world (don't argue, you'll just embarrass yourself) thinking, 'There's absolutely no way that God could have brought this about. He doesn't give me what I want. I must have done this myself.'
Funny, considering that my most natural reaction throughout the course of letting things happen was to run away and just give up on the whole thing.

I was driving today, and I started praying. 'God, thank you for bringing this about.'
'Do you finally believe that I brought this about?'
I teared up a little bit.
'I think I'm starting to.'

I still have so far to go.

"God, You are so good to me. I don't even understand it."
"What did you expect? I love you."
"(breathe.) Say that again."
"I love you."


"I think I believe that now."

Waiting to Wake Up, pt. II

There's this feeling in the darkest part of me that I'm doing something terribly outside of God's plan. And that feeling comes out of the feeling I've been coming out of the past couple years that God will never let me have what I want, and I've been very pleased with the way things are going lately--so pleased that the nagging part of me that still doubts the goodness of God tells me, 'there's no way in Hell you're doing the right thing. He would never allow this.'

I love knowing that that voice is wrong.

After being hung up on someone for over a year with absolutely no reciprocation of feeling, I can't tell you how strange it is to be met with returned affection. Or how strange it was initially to realize that I was free from feelings, and free from them coming back. Funny, over spring break, I told myself that I probably shouldn't pursue a dating relationship anytime soon, because I wasn't sure that I could stay committed if Hung-Up girl suddenly realized that she had feelings for me after all. And so, I drifted with several half-crushes and attractions, trying to learn how to not hate myself while wallowing in a sort of passive cowardice.

Then, something strange happened.

I was in the art building with Sonia helping her move her submissions for the art show onto the table. Inside of the art building was my friend Michelle, who I had a huge crush on freshman year and now was glad to have caught up with thanks to our senior experience class. I talked to her for a few minutes, and then had a startling thought.
'I wouldn't mind dating Michelle. At all.'
Then a chill ran down my spine, because I knew that meant I had to tell her, and that terrified me.

I can't tell you how easy it would have been to have ignored that and kept living the same way I was. But I resolved to tell her. And she shook my hand, then told me that she liked me too. But, we both didn't want to rush into anything, so we agreed to just let things happen and see where they go.

The past couple weeks have surprised me in finding out where exactly things have gone. Turns out that not even the complex I've developed of refusing to accept that someone I'm attracted to could return my feelings could stop me from realizing that this feeling is very mutual. But, as I told her before, I didn't want to make a decision based on feelings alone (if I did that, I would have made up my mind a long time ago). So the past few nights, we've been talking about ways that the other has affected us (such as the numerous lessons of grace and compassion) and non-emotional aspects of our friendship (such as the way she gives me permission to be all of myself, flaws and all), and we decided that we were going to make this official and call ourselves a couple.

But, a few things were stopping us. I wanted to ask her parents first, and she wasn't sure that she was ready. Obviously, I wasn't going to go into a relationship as the only one ready for it, so we decided to wait until she felt ready.

Her feeling ready ended up being Sunday night. But, I still hadn't talked to her parents. So last night at nine thirty, I drove to her house (sans Michelle) and was greeted by her parents in the family room. "What was it you wanted to talk to us about, Nat?" her dad asked.
"Well, I have a story. Do you want the long version or the short version?"
"Short version. We're old and we're about to go to bed here pretty soon."

So I explained quickly that Michelle and I had been seeing where things go, and they knew where that has been, and asked if they would be okay with that.

"Well," her dad said, "Michelle's a smart kid, and I trust her, and I trust the decisions she makes" (he must have said this about five times) "and I trust you with her, so yeah."
"You have our blessing," her mom said, smiling.

We talked for a while--they asked what I majored in and where I was going in life. For whatever reason, my moving to Chicago always comes up, but I always remind those that ask that Chicago is not far. At some point, her mom looked at me with a puzzled look on her face and said, "I thought you were two were already dating." I laughed.

Michelle and I went to the diner, and then to the park afterward and just sat in my car talking and listening to music. And every once in a while, this whirlwind will rush through me
'This is really happening'

And I can hardly believe it.

This is really happening.

Waiting to Wake Up

I can hardly believe my life these days. Everything is coming together in such incredible ways that make me suddenly stop in the middle of the street or in conversation and say, 'this is really happening' because I need to remind myself that I'm not hallucinating.

Saturday morning, I took a train out to Chicago with two grand in cash and met up with Kriss & Mellie (roommates extraordinaire). We took a bus out to Ukrainian Village to sign the lease and give the security deposit (the two grand in cash). Our landlords are a middle-aged Ukrainian couple who are incredibly friendly and incredibly laid back with thick, thick, thick accents. Olga (the wife) had given the key to the handyman to show it to some potential clients in case we didn't sign the lease, and the tenants were both out of the state, so we had to wait until eight o' clock.

So, we walked out of Ukrainian village until we got to Wicker Park. We went to a vegan burger joint, a pastry shop called Sweetcakes, a couple awesome record stores, Ragstock (a sweet thrift store that also sells new clothes), a three level bookstore named Myopics that has a claustrophobic maze for a fiction section, and a bunch of comic shops to indulge Kriss.
Around seven o' clock, we started walking toward the apartment. Kriss checked his clock to time the walk. After a short time, Kriss said, 'see that street up there?' referring to the street a block away. 'That's our street. It's been nine minutes.'

So, with a lot of time to spare, we stopped at Walgreens for snacks and then went looking for the grocery store. Kriss asked a girl in a nail salon by the Walgreens (which is across North Ave from our apartment) and she told him it was four blocks up the street. Passing Three Stooges' Meats and Fruits and Habibi's Fast Food and Grocery (they sell falafel. Two blocks from our apartment. Sweet.) we see the grocery store--an obnoxiously yellow building with red and green stripes running along the top. Kriss decried it as tacky. We walked in, seeing some of the signs advertising deals ("Well, that's a pretty good deal," Kriss said skeptically). Kriss led the expidition and we followed him to the far wall, where twenty pound bags of rice were being sold for $14.50. Kriss swore. We walked into the next aisle and were met with more outrageously low prices. And the next aisle. And the next. And then we walked into the dry bean aisle. I have never heard swear so much out of joy in my life. Kriss is content.

(I forgot to mention. Next to the Walgreens across from our apartment is a utility box where someone had graffitied the name 'Nat')

Five till eight, we walked back to the apartment and showed up right as the handyman got there. He let us into the apartment.
It's a sweet apartment. Incredibly so. I love it. Three bedrooms, one of which will be turned into a music room. There's laundry just outside our kitchen. There's a sweet little tile storage room that I will use as a chillout spot. The living room is about twice the size of my living room at Logan Village.
I love it. It's a good thing we already signed the lease, because if I needed to put on my poker face for a landlord, I would have failed.

Wednesday, Kriss called me to tell me that the place we were looking at wanted six months of rent up front, so we didn't know what we were going to do about it or where else we might move to. He mentioned a duplex with three vegan girls, which I was a little iffy on. He sighed, exasperated saying that he was doing everything he could, but he didn't know what other options we had. I told him not to worry, because there was a place out there. "God has had His hand in this from the very beginning. He's not going to lead us this far and then NOT have the perfect place for us."
"Do you really think God is in this?"
"Absolutely. The way things just fell together, there's no way He isn't."
"Wow. That's comforting. I don't know, I'm still worried."
"Don't be. There's a place."

I got to tell Kriss that I told him so several times.

Welcome to Wicker Park, baby.

GAH

LIFE IS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW.

Oh, Goodness

That was a close call.

A Drive Home For Which No Soundtrack is Suitable but Sigur Ros

I pulled away simply repeating to myself, 'oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.'

The End and the Beginning

It's so strange to think that I'm done at Bethel and on to be 'an adult,' so most of the times, I avoid it.

In a lot of ways, this final year was the best and worst year I've ever had. It saw me at my brightest and darkest. But it's bar none the best, because this was the year I finally put together that how naturally music came to me might just mean that I'm supposed to actually do something with it, and so I am. It's also the year where I learned what Grace is, and how to accept myself, and when I started to figure out who I am.

I also started understanding what true happiness is, and learned how to be wise in that.
Or at least, I'm learning.
With help.
(means you.)