tomato soup, goldfish crackers, and primordial ooze

most of us look back on a certain time of our lives as being "the good old days"; a time when we were generally happy and carefree, a time when things seemed right with the world, our lives, and our sense of self. but for some reason, we look back on those times with rose-tinted glasses (or yellow-tinted glasses, whatever your preference), conveniently forgetting the bad things and only choosing to remember that we were happier, more carefree, full of life and full of freedom.

this morning when i stopped at the grocery store to pick up something for lunch, i got two things that i have not eaten in combination since my college days: a can of tomato soup and a bag of goldfish crackers. as i stood in the kitchen and cracked open that fresh can of condensed soup ("there's no food in your food"), i was taken immediately back to my junior year of college and how much tomato soup and goldfish crackers i ingested. i thought to myself "man, those were the good old days…". the version of me that i see in my memory is happy, fulfilled, energetic, stress-free, hopeful of the future yet present to the moment.

i remember spending many the happy hour in the piano studio with nothing but a cup of coffee and a book of rachmaninoff. when you major in music, you are given the extreme luxury of minimal homework - make music. and so you do. you spend 6-7 hours a day in the practice rooms making music, creating, practicing. and it never seemed like much of a chore. at least, that's what i remember…

i remember how easy it was to get together with friends at the last minute to do whatever random and retarded thing we could to get a laugh or blow of steam. spontaneous hassle-free fun with no pre-planning involved. at least, that's what i remember…

i remember how easy it was to eat. you'd just show up at the dining center, grab a tray, and suddenly food would appear. magic. no shopping, cooking, or dishes. at least, that's what i remember...

because nowadays, i'd give anything to have just one free hour to sit down with my piano or my guitar, just to play music for music's sake with no paycheck or strings attached... it seems that so many other distractions take precedence over the one thing in my life that connects me to Something greater.

i'd give anything if getting together with my friends could be simple, organic, and spontaneous. now it involves planning ahead, finding baby sitters, making sure you have enough money to go out.

i'd give anything if eating a meal meant all i had to do was pick up a tray. now, it means i have to decide what to eat, stop at the grocery store, cook, and clean up afterwards.

but as i cracked open the can of tomato soup and pulled apart the top of the goldfish cracker bag, i remembered that the years i spent in college were actually not as perfect as i've chosen to remember. i always had tomato soup and goldfish crackers on hand for the the times when i ran out of food-points for the dining center. i remember how much i grew to hate tomato soup and goldfish crackers because it meant i would have to eat alone in my apartment that didn't have a kitchen to cook in or a sink to wash dishes in.

and yeah, maybe i had hours upon hours to spend in the practice rooms, but i remember how terribly lonely it was to sit in those cold practice rooms with bad fluorescent lighting and how i grew to resent those hours when it meant that on friday night i would be pounding away on a piano while my friends went out.

and maybe i had a lot more friends back then who would do crazy spontaneous things with me at the drop of a dime, but that's where it stopped. i had a lot of friends and very few of them really knew me or cared about who i was trying to become.

if given the choice, i don't think i would choose to go back and relive those days. because maybe there was a lot of good, but there was also a lot of hurt, ache, emptiness and confusion… the stuff of reality, the pangs of a life being formed. it is more convenient to forget the bad and remember the good, but the intermingled memory of them both is what teaches me who i am, what matters to me, and who i want to become.

undeniably, someday down the road i will look back on these present days with a crimson colored lens as "the good old days", remembering the good and conveniently forgetting the bad. but the good alone is not what transforms us, so i hope that i always remember the bad too, because it is a tangible reminder of the primordial ooze from which my soul continues to crawl.

buried in my pocket

i refuse to drag my purse to shows or bars for two reasons: 1) i cannot allow myself to become one of "those girls" who dance with a midget (purse) slung over their shoulder; 2) i cannot entrust the contents of said purse to the general public when i leave it at the table to go dance. so every week, as i mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically prepare for our thursday evening gathering at gluek's, i push the limits of my coat pockets to see how much they can take. in recent weeks, i have succesfully crammed some combination of the following into my sad little pockets: cell phone, id, the credit and debit cards that probably shouldn't stay within the tempting confines of my parked car on the streets of downtown, lip gloss, mirror, cigarettes, gloves, lighter, gum, newspaper (don't ask), iPod, water bottle, advil, chapstick.

so, in the wee hours of the morning, in the post-gluek's cleaning-out of my courdoroy jacket pockets, i found my id, my check card, a few pieces of gum, my iPod, some chapstick, and the sad remainder of a cigarette. i cannot nail down exactly why, but the ashen remains of that cigarette made me extravagantly grateful.

a handful of my beautiful beloved friends are going through some of the hardest things in their lives. i am trying to stand beside them with my heart in my hands, witholding my need to fix everything, and my own questions keep coming to the foreground. am i really fulfilled, "happy", complete? is this how it will be and who i will be for the rest of my life? these questions are nothing new to me. i've been staring into a dirty mirror with blurry eyes for probably a year now. but tonight, i was given the gift of staring into the face of gratefulness.

i was extravagantly grateful for my own heartache and emptiness because it reminds me that i am not alone... that my ache is known by and familiar to not only to my friends, but to a God who is infinitely greater than this world. i have a Partner who has given me the ability to change, to actually become a different kind of person because He lives inside of the shallows of my heart.

authentic change, the kind that resets your entire way of being, is not something you can "buck up" to, something you can accomplish if left to your own devices. and that is exactly why Christ doesn't leave us to our own devices.

that ciggy remnant reminded me of the conversations, the swollen eyes, the smiles, and the beautiful faces of my blessed friends who have dwelt too long in lonelines; who have stumbled to find a way out of this present darkness. but greater is the One that takes up residence inside the dark corners of all of us. i wipe my eyes and lift my empty hands in gratefulness.