Today I mourn...

Today I mourn the loss of my child. I was awoken this morning by a text I’d been restlessly waiting for since the previous night. It was my brother-in-law, Peter, the computer nerd. His text to me read, “Yeah, bad news Jake. The drive is dead. I’ll get the BYU data recovery number for you.”

That is not what I needed to start my Sunday morning, especially since I’d already been contemplating whether I wanted to even go to church. I lay in bed this morning (actually on the floor because my bed is now my school desk) frustrated and stubbornly determined to not get up and get ready for church when I received another text. It read, “Quick reminder- today’s the fourth Sunday so we have our missionary meeting at 12 noon in the bishop’s office =)” I sighed and my mind was caught away in what I had been deeply contemplating the night before. Though I am eternally blessed with the knowledge that I am a child of Heavenly Parents I am also at the same time often confounded as to who it is that I truly am. A reason I am confused as to this topic is because my feelings toward nearly everything are so back and forth and scattered. Often times I think that the only thing I really know is, is that the church is true, and everything else is just so inconsistent and ever changing depending on the worldly schemes and thoughts of man.

I think that the majority of the things people do are based upon how they feel, so when I am tossed to and fro with my own feelings so terribly how am I supposed to know what it is that I am to do in any given situation? Thus, this problem leads me to wonder about who it is that I am when I’ve no consistency in how I feel. I feel lost and weary because of this fluctuation in thought and emotion, so I wonder, who really am I? I didn’t want to go to church, which makes me sad because I love the church. As I lay there pondering over my true identity and character, that stupid smiley face from my ward mission leader at the end of the last text entered my mind, and it was as if something profound fell upon me, as if words clearly entered my head. It was a text message from heaven if you will. Those words said, “It’s not how you feel that determines your identity, it’s what you do with your knowledge despite how you feel.” I mulled those words over and over again in my head for about a half hour and I finally concluded that I simply could not, not get up and go to church. I did and later after my missionary meeting I spontaneously asked Bishop if I could give a talk in sacrament meeting soon. Don’t ask me why, maybe I felt like I needed to honor the death of my hard-drive, the physical death of so many of my words that I’ve gratefully labored over for the past few years. I have to say that as of a few months ago I have my hard drive backed up but everything I’ve written that isn’t on my blog within the last several months is gone. There is still hope though, my other brother-in-law, Frank is an even bigger computer nerd who says he can recover data from dead hard-drives. So here’s hoping.

I want to clarify that when I say I don’t have any consistency in the way I feel, I mean by that that I am so unsure of how to handle shooting feelings of life in general. I do know that I love people greatly and those feelings never change. I am grateful for my acquaintances, especially those who’ve truly impacted my life and have been there for me.

Well, that’s that, and even though it is not a person I still pray for my hard-drive because what is on that drive means quite a lot to me. I hope I’ll get all that data back but either way I shall continue to write. I will always write because that’s just what I do, wait a second, maybe that’s a consistent thread of who I am throughout all of my inconsistent feelings of everything else. Who am I? I suppose I am a writer, I suppose that is true regardless of anything else. I am a writer who loves greatly, that is who I am, at least in part.

My Mother

My Mother

I was told vapidly once not long ago that the best revenge is a life well lived, speaking in regards to a girl who broke my heart. I say though, one mustn’t have really loved at all in the first place if taking revenge is the first and foremost desire. Though I’ve no idea how this girl did all that she did in those few months, I’ve, through all my searching and praying concluded that I could never hate her for it.

Something I found that hurt more than taking herself from me was what she took with her, her family, her family I considered my very own, and can now have nothing more to do with other than to simply love them silently in my mind and in my heart.  

O, Provo, “my city,” the place where I grew in to this family. I love it as I love them, with a passionate fondness, yet there is a lurking wariness to that love. Nearly every close relation I have in this place is marred by this very dark time in my life. It’s as if all of my childhood is stained with that blackness that suffocates any good reminiscences from coming to mind. I love them beyond words, yet it is difficult as well beyond words to forget about how much it hurt.

“How can a soul lose so much?” I’ve asked God far too many times. Maybe I was, before the world began designed for this trial, for this path that I currently walk, continually looking over my shoulder as I do throughout the streets that parallel State Street, and those that wind through all of BYU campus.

For the most part I stray from those places where you always run into people you know, like Maceys, and Café Rio. But once and awhile I find myself carefully walking down those grocery store aisles with a hint of hope that I might see someone from my old life, and I have seen them, but I also have said nothing and as a ghost have left the place only glancing back once or twice as I get in my car to leave.

   The last time I saw the woman I considered my second mother was a few months after her daughter’s wedding. There truthfully wasn’t much to say, or there was all too much to say with absolutely no ways to say it all.

Still, at this time I was going through denial that any of this was really happening, that the people I had planned on being with forever were forever slipping away from me. It was the oddest sensation that last meeting of ours, it was as if I felt the love of my life shining through her mother as I embraced her. I stared off into nowhere over her shoulder as we hugged and still even at that time I felt like I was living in a dream world that wasn’t actually real, or all too real, I couldn’t tell which. I still was in utter disbelief that just months ago I was embracing another girl whom I loved with all my heart, but now, as if within a blink of an eye was gone.

Before I left that day I fulfilled something I had wanted to do since the previous Christmas. I presented “my mother” with a small gift wrapped in white wrapping paper. “Something to remember me by,” I said as my eyes started to water, firm faced but shying away from her eyes. Her face scrunched with emotion as the significance of the white paper rested in her mind. She reached out and took my gift slowly; a tear rolled down her face. She reached out and hugged me again. I embraced her again in return.

The gift was something I had wanted to give her family for Christmas but was completely at the time unable to, and it’s not important what it was, suffice it to say it signified my love for her and her family regardless of all that had happened.

I’m not quite sure what the last thing that was said in this last meeting of ours but I knew that she felt like she was losing forever a son, I in return losing a family. I think between this day and the next few weeks became the point in which I became completely and utterly apathetic and emotionless in my days because I simply could not cry any more than I already had. I stopped for a time crying at all, but also ceasing laughter or smiling or showing really any emotion as well. It was just too difficult, especially thinking of the last thing I said to my second mother in an email just a short while later. I would only damn myself if I repeated it in any fashion so I’ll refrain from quoting it. Suffice it to say I think that if I’ve ever said anything in my life that would cause another person to break down and cry all the day long and inside for years to come, that’s what I said. I cried all that day and still think about that email every day since. I’ve not heard back from her and she’s become only a memory in which I’ll forever wonder about, “my mother” who can never be my mother anymore.

In a way, at least to me Provo is a symbol of my relationship with her. Loving her and her family so much, yet unable to say it or truly emphasize it in any way, as if I’ll always be a part of her family, but me to her will always and only ever be an unsolvable enigma that was forced out of it. In no way did I ever want to force her to pick sides between me and her very own daughter but deep down I somehow knew that she was almost just as heartbroken as I was when her daughter left me for a complete stranger.

What was to be done though? I’ve no idea. I do know from my depths though from this experience came a knowledge of so many things that I’d never understood before. Since I’ve come out of this terrible time my understanding of the meaning of life has been magnified. I’ve seen the beauty in sunsets and in the night sky. I’ve hiked through the mountains searching for some sort of solace and seen nature in ways I had never seen it before. I’ve found that life in any form is incredible and that it really does go on even if it takes years to realize it. I know that all these things are for my benefit in the end if I can find the good in them somehow and if I can continue on respecting those events for what they were regardless of how difficult they were.

I’ll never be able to forget that family, and though I was hurt and said some awful things I never meant to hurt them in return. I loved that girl with all of my heart and I still love her but in such a different way now. I would say in a much more mature and respectful way than I’ve ever loved anyone else. Like I said, I have no idea why she did everything that she did, but I truly hope that she is happy with the life that she chose and is able to forget me the way I was when it all ended, and simply remember me the way I was when we were children, innocent and just happy to be together. That’s how I try to remember her because it is the only way I can move on from it. Dwelling on the darkest times only makes me feel horrible inside.

I wish things could have been different. Not necessarily different by still somehow being with this girl, but rather just different in the way I acted when our relationship came to an end. Maybe something still needs to happen, maybe there are still unexpressed feelings on both sides that need to come to light, but I simply am at a loss as to how they ever will.

All I know is, I’ve intimately learned what it means to love. I’ve loved greatly and lost greatly, but there is something inside of me that whispers daily that I’ve not really lost anything, but rather I’ve gained more than anything I could have ever lost in the first place. I’ve gained a true love by losing it, and I’ll always be grateful for that experience, I always will. 

The ring in my ears...

The ring in my ears that I hear when I’m alone and quite, though brought on by deathly times, reminds me of my moments under the stars at night, gazing heavenward with glistening eyes wet with tears.

Still they ring as I write and even when I don’t hear it they do still, I am simply only aware when I’m quite, which are usually the times that I write and stargaze.

So, this seemingly negative thing I can’t help but associate with my searching for meaning and purpose which is absolutely everything but negative is simply there within my ears, loud as day when I’m quite but hardly noticeable when life surrounds. I do not wish to be flawed, but I feel as those pioneers who lost homes, children, the love of their lives, and their own lives, who testify that their trials were not too much to bear in order for them to become intimately acquainted with God.

I feel it necessary to state that these words are simply my heart crying out. I am strengthened in my testimony and of my abilities and blessings when I write, and also it helps me to bring purpose to the path I’ve been given to walk. Just to know that whatever will end up happening to me I’ll be able to write of things that are good and create poetry with my words. It is my source of strength when I am scared and weak, it is my way of showing respect to myself, it is, in a way me keeping good on a promise that I’ve been asked to keep. Simply to “write”, that’s all I knew I had to do when I couldn’t see any light or anything at all of beauty. One could say they’ve gone crazy when they’ve heard a voice from somewhere surrounding. But after much thought I don’t believe I’ve gone crazy. I merely heard the words which were to save my life, and I ask, is the product of me hearing this voice that simply told me to “write” in the midst of my darkest time, pleading, not for deliverance, but for what I should do in order to be delivered good or is it not?  I believe it is good because it testifies of what I truly believe and that is in the Atonement of Christ.

Through burying my face in my pillow as I wept, to staring blankly into the ceiling of my room for countless hours with eyes swollen and red from overuse, I heard in those moments of the darkest night as I could not curse God anymore for my lose and pain, I heard as if it were the ringing in my ears itself at this very moment that I needed to write. I heard those words and as much as I hated blaming God for this pain I could not help it because I hurt more than I ever thought a body, a soul could hurt, but despite my cursing’s I found that when I wrote, I wrote of the stars, I wrote of love, I wrote of God, I wrote of a journey that goes beyond the bounds of time and earthly things. I found that what I wrote was what I truly believed in despite my horrendous weaknesses in action and speech. I found in my words a peace that did not come from the emotional need for companionship, but rather from my very self, though I still long. 

I struggle with finding middle ground in my actions and feelings. Trying to be “normal” is something I’ve always struggled with because I don’t believe I’ve ever been emotionally aligned properly with the timeframe of my body. It can be very difficult, yet relieving at the same time. Difficult, because I never had the same thoughts as all of my friends which led to me being the strange one, or the odd one out, yet at the same time I’ve always been the popular odd one out, but not because I tried to be, it was just my own personal oddity. Though I have few very close friends, I know they are my friends, and though I sometimes feel alone I would not trade that alone feeling for worldly popularity. It’s better to tread softly in sincerity and be alone than to stomp loudly with throngs of “friends” and be loved, but what’s best is to walk graciously alongside a few you do love who return the favor by walking graciously alongside you in return.

 I want to create a masterpiece, something grand and magnificent, yet something just grand enough that only a few might ever notice, those few who search for something more than what they can see. But I ask the question, why would anyone ever search for more than what they can see if everything they can see is not made known to them that it itself is making them blind.

I hope one day I’ll be able to live up to what I know is true.

The gloves are off: My true feelings vs. Facebook...

As I sip my hot chocolate with whip cream from Starbucks at the UVU library I can’t help but feel oddly like I own the school. I look out over all the students from my spot I’ve designated for myself through the glass side rail from the second floor level. Leaning on my backpack which I’ve discovered doubles as a very comfy pillow I think to myself, I’m definitely not the smartest person here, but just looking at all those students staring glazedly into their laptops and texting uncontrollably on their phones I think, we are a zombie race of humans! Brainwashed by laptops and bound as if with thick chains to our phones and iPods. It’s incredibly relieving to see the one or two people reading the newspaper or actual books with paper pages, or even just conversing with another human being uninterrupted by the text fiend.

This thought is only emphasized when I witness the people entering and exiting the UVU shuttles. It’s as if they are cattle being herded from one location to the other. They step on blank faced and zombie like, sit down and pull out their phones and start texting still blank faced, the occasional light minded moo… I mean laugh ensues after a moment as they receive a response text, even most of them with earphones in at the same time, then they step off as they stepped on, like blank faced cattle.

Are we to simply be herded from one location to the next in life with no emphasis on independence and self-awareness? Are we truly a slave zombie race to Apple, and At&t, and all their competitors? Me thinks we are… I remember when the iPods came out and everyone I knew got one, that is except for me and I truly am grateful I didn’t. I feel the same way about Facebook, “the more friendly myspace…” which between the two I liken unto Jim Jones and Oprah Winfrey. Myspace being Jim Jones, (the man responsible for brainwashing more than 900 people into committing suicide) and Facebook being Oprah, (the lady that gives cars to everybody.) They're both fiends but one is more subtle and alluring.

I signed back into my facebook account the other day just to see if I really have been blowing this thing out of proportion with my anti-facebook real life status, and you want to know what I found? I found that I really haven’t been. It zapped out any little bit of doubt in my mind that it would be nice once and awhile to have a facebook because from what I saw in just those few minutes back on, made me realize that I don’t want anything at all to do with the site. Call me a hater with no good reasons, but I say I’ve got reasons that really no avid facebook user would understand.

I’ve discussed my hair-brained, crazy opinions on reality and what is real around us in this life before and one thing that I’ve discovered is that facebook simply is not real. Any bit of good that comes from having a facebook is utterly smothered out by its deafening light-minded banter, which only continually breeds more light-minded banter, which at least to me is the most unattractive thing there is. It’s immature, insincere, un-intimate and very impersonal. It is the exact opposite of what Truth is, and truth is what is real in this life. I’m not the crazy one I’m discovering, everyone else is. Also, it takes our lives away because we put our lives onto it and we think, “well, what will I have if I don’t have a facebook?” You’ll have freedom my friends and more meaningful relationships I can guarantee it, because everything we do ripples into everything else we do and if we’re continually dabbling in shallow, insincere waters (facebook) then we’ll be shallow and insincere in our relationships which only leads to heartbreak.

I was thinking about this a lot today in regards to my ultimate question of “Who I am.” I was told by a close relation of mine the other day that throughout my waves of conflicting characteristic traits and sprinting feelings they could see a string of consistency in who I really am. I took a walk through the University Mall with two of my closest friends today and as I did I just looked at all of the people walking by and all of their diverse looks, and styles, and countenances, and even just the way in which they carried themselves. I thought to myself, I don’t want to walk the way that person is walking, I don’t want to talk the way that person is talking, I don’t want to wear my clothes like that person, I don’t want to surround myself with people like that, but what I do want is to be able to walk as if I were walking through a sacred garden, I want to talk as if I were speaking to the love of my life, I want to wear clothes that outwardly portrait my desire for true beauty, and I want to surround myself with people who love me and want to be with me because I do have those desires.

I feel myself as a growing force in this world that is slowly recognizing something brilliant, something sacred that scholars throughout the generations have sought for within the text of wise-men, yet paradoxically and sadly are unable to attain because of their own wisdom. I feel as though I’m gaining power because I am becoming aware of and acting upon the truths around me. I don’t aspire for that power but I aspire to be whole inside and the only way I’ve found I can be is by staying away from what the world is doing. I want to be freed from the addictions and needs the world forces upon us every single day. It truly is that when we are free we have the greatest power in the universe, and that is truth and love, and if there is anything in the world I truly want, that would be to love unhindered by a facebook status and to truly express it without coarsely displaying it to a world of shallow waters whose inhabitants only banter amongst themselves triflingly.

Well, there it was, I really think it was about time I shared my true feelings on the matter, sorry if I hurt anyone’s feelings. Thank you and goodnight.

Jerry Sloan

I keep telling myself that I’m true blue, but after yesterday’s surreal moment when I watched a teary eyed Jerry Sloan give his resignation speech I couldn’t help but think that “they” forced him out of his position despite what he said or what Larry Miller’s son Greg said, that he or no one else force him out and it was all Sloan’s definitive decision.

I was a huge Jazz fan, and D-Will, number 8, (my favorite number) was one of my favorite players in the league but I’ve since lost respect for him. Apparently after their regrettable loss to “the Jazz of the East,” the Chicago bulls who displayed their three former Jazz players of just even last season, Carlos Boozer, Ronnie Brewer, and Kyle Korver, Deron had a little spat with Jerry at half time and I think made him feel old and washed up.

I don’t know if I can full heartedly root for the Jazz anymore because Jerry Sloan was the greatest man to ever coach the game and that’s not just my opinion, and they pressured him into retiring. I think Deron had a lot to do with it and it breaks my heart.

I’ll still watch the games, and I actually do like Tyrone Corbin, the new Head Coach of the Utah Jazz but in no way ever will anyone fill Jerry Sloan’s shoes. Jerry was the epitome of consistency and good sportsmanship, even when his former team, the Chicago Bulls cheated their way to the Championship in the 96-97, 97-98 playoffs. John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek, and yes, I’ll say it, even Karl Malone all deserve a Championship title but no one in my opinion deserves it more than Coach Sloan.

One of the greatest men to ever be a part of the game is Coach Jerry Sloan, and even though his sudden mid-season retirement leaves much debate as to how I believe he was mistreated and haggled into leaving, his undeniable legacy will stand on its own two feet while those who wanted him out in my opinion…cough… Greg Miller… cough… will receive their just reward in time, whatever it be.

Jerry Sloan and Larry Miller were best friends, and to me for both of their endings, Larry’s wholly unfortunate death, and Jerry’s tear wrenching retirement, testify to me that the best people in life really do get the best rewards in the eyes of those who love them, while others who boast and smother them out receive the glory of the world.   

No matter who coaches the Jazz in the future, you will always be that symbol that represents the very heart of Jazz Nation. I’ve loved watching all your shenanigans over the years and witnessing all of your great career moments as they happen. Though others must step in and coach the team, no one will ever really take your place Jerry and you are a champion in my book. Thank you so much for letting me grow up with the very best in basketball. I’ll never forget you or the very best of the classic Jazz. In that sense I’ll always be true blue, but the new Jazz have to prove to me now that they can still carry on that great character that you so prominently displayed throughout your career. Like I said, not many can or ever will be able to say they’ve had a career that even comes close to yours, and once again Jerry you are a champion, you really are.

What am i worth...

What am I worth? Am I worth anything? I know I am, but in the eyes of the world I’m not really worth a whole lot, and that kind of gets me down a whole lot since I live in the world.

If I’m going to be judged by the letters on a piece of paper making up my work experience and by how well I can put together a resume, then to heck with me altogether. Just let me fade into outer darkness right now.

The truth is I don’t have a lot of experience so why would anyone give me a second look? I realize that my personal strengths should shine through into my abilities to find a job but I seriously can’t keep filling out applications forever. I’ve gotten to the point where it literally makes me sick inside to look at one because I’ve determined, for me at least, that they are absolutely useless.

It makes me want to cry. I don’t want a lot in life, I simply want to be faithful in my religion, go to work and earn a decent living, and go home to a beautiful girl I love and with her look at the stars once and awhile and talk into the night wrapped up in each other’s warmth. Is life allowed to be that simple? I think it can be but it just isn’t. Truthfully, I don’t know if I’ll ever receive any of that other than being faithful. I know that church wants me regardless of my lack of experience. The church is my love I suppose; I’ve seen that symbolism in my dreams and I can’t deny that.

I lie in bed often and just cry silently letting my tears roll down my face wetting my pillow. Sometimes I ask God in my prayers why I couldn’t have been one of the ones to walk barefoot across the country, or to have been beaten for my beliefs, or to have had to sacrifice all of my possession for a greater cause, and then I simply think, well, because He really must’ve just loved me enough to want to test me by making me fill out applications all the damn day… darn day…

I sigh and just wonder when I’ll figure out my path, when some path will be unveiled for me. I keep tromping through this life cutting my way through the jungles of uncertainty wondering if I’ll ever come upon a road somewhere. Does that ever even happen? Are the sincere really blest in that way? My problem is, is that I believe that and I can’t not, even though I see nothing. It just makes me sad, because how long can I see nothing? How long do I have to wade in my struggles before I’m freed even a little bit? Where is my place? Where is my love? Where is my peace? Who will hire me and why would they even, if they want nothing more than impressive histories on a piece of paper. Well, you want my resume, this is my resume, and these are my credentials. My heart is my experience and I’ll not give you anything less than what I am, and I am my heart and these humble words I’ve written this day. I understand a need for filling out personal information when applying for a job but I think it’s gotten grandly too far out of hand. I say, let me work and show you my life, not, let me offer you my life on a piece of paper just so you can throw it away. Just let me work, just let me work.