An Inconveinient Truth

As of late, my head has been spinning. I don’t have a headache, but yet, I am struggling to focus. Have you ever been to a state fair or an amusement park and ridden one of those rides that spins you really fast, forcing you against the side? Well, that is the way the inside of my head feels lately. And it just seems the pressure continues to mount.

I feel very lost. Now allow me to clarify that statement. For anyone with a backwoods-church mentality, I don’t mean I am lost and not sure where to find Jesus in these tough times. (I only specify that group because I have had some conversations as of late with people that don’t seem to get that my God isn’t a God that wore a tie with a button-down shirt while putting His creation together. He’s a God that gets me and all of my weirdness.) I am lost in the sense of how do I balance a life that seems straight out of a B-rated movie, made on the outskirts of Hollywood. (It is B-rated because there is no way a Hollywood studio would try to convince people of such a life in some film. In my opinion, it all seems very far-fetched.) I love it, absolutely love it, when I can be witty enough to come up with some quick response to a question or comment. But these days, I feel a massive pressure from my job, that I still love, to continue to perform when I am not always certain of what to do next. I am still trying to figure out how to be a dad of a four-year old and a dad to four three-year olds. And then there are days like today, when I have to take my wife back to the emergency room because it’s a possibility that she has a blood clot in her leg. (She doesn’t. But we did find out that her blood is dangerously thick. In turn, I have to go back to giving her a shot, twice a day, in her stomach. I had prayed that my nursing days were over, for her sake.)

You know, sometimes I need to be a guy. I need loud music and a fast car. I need to watch a fight scene in a movie. I need to be able to eat most of my meal with my hands. When no one is around to impress and I am not expected to be a certain way, that side comes out. While away this week, I would find myself doing those things and practically laughing out because of how stupid it probably all looked, but how good it felt to just be me. When walking the rows of cars at the rental car lot, I picked the Pontiac G6 with shiny five-point wheels, a spoiler and a sunroof. It was fast and the radio bass was right where I liked it for cruising up I-85. For my last dinner in the Atlanta area, I ate at Dreamland BBQ. (One thing I really love about the South is that you can drink a glass of REAL sweat iced-tea while being called “sweetie” by the older woman that has been working there for years.) I had five pork ribs on the bone, seasoned green beans, and a small bowl of Brunswick steak. Oh, and Sunbeam white bread dipped in barbecue sauce. I was grinnin’ from ear-to-ear.

(Feel free to quit reading at any point, but I am going to continue to ramble.)

There is not a real good way to explain to you the fight within me regarding my job versus my family. Any man that puts his job ahead of his family doesn’t deserve a family. I miss them. I find myself being very proud of my family as I share my story with people that do seem interested in hearing more about them. So often times, there are stories of love amongst family members, but do they really like each other? I really love AND like my family. They are all incredibly special. I still question God sometimes on whether or not He really knew what He was doing when He blessed me with some of His own treasure. But as my oldest son climbs atop of a tub of toys to look at the kids’ DVDs to see which one he wants to watch while his brother and sisters take their nap, I praise God for trusting me with him. And then I go into the girls’ room to get them up from their nap and Candice rolls over to look up at me with her big brown eyes and replies “Yes” in her raspy Candi voice after I asked her if she is ready to get up, I praise God for trusting me with her. To have a wife that encourages me to continue to fight for this job that I am good at and love, knowing that there will be many times where she will have to handle the kids on her own, I praise God for trusting me with her.

This week, I met people from Missouri and the great state of Tennessee, and from Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and from the state of Washington, Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Ohio. Sometimes we talked about why I was there, while other times, we talked about some of the most random things. (Right up my alley.) Wonder what their story is. I wonder where their heartaches are. I then began to smile. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I am depressed. But I do get down. I get beat up. I have learn to live exhausted. (And not always physically, but also emotionally and mentally.) But I really, really, really want to smile and laugh more. I want people to be happier after talking with me than they were beforehand.

If Mr. Gore wanted to really get at the heart of an inconvenient truth, he could have started with the voices that we all battle. I don’t mean some sort of psychological disorder that has gone undiagnosed. I am referring to the different people in our lives telling us to do this or that. We are all pulled here and there to accomplish what? I have come to realize how I often times make God irrelevant except for the big issues. If I am in the rat race with all of you, have any of us found the freaking cheese. (I think I just talked myself into the book “Who Moved My Cheese.”) But the hard part about hearing the voices of the people wanting to help me in some way is that I that struggle trying to please everyone at once…and then I end up not making anybody happy. Where does it end?

Sorry for going on and on about my own interpersonal fits that I tend to throw when I am alone. The past few days, I have sat at my booth at the conference and starred out at the parking lot; I sat in the floor in the terminal at gate T12 in Atlanta next to the only outlet I could find that wasn’t in use watching The Bourne Ultimatum waiting to head home; I stood on the train on the skylink at the DFW airport all alone; I pulled into my driveway at 12:15 in the morning…all these times provide moments of perspective. And here’s what I came up with. I hardly have any answers for life’s toughest questions. I am man that battles fears of loss, loneliness, and confusion. But the thing I am most certain of is this…Heaven can wait. If I have gone through all that I have over the last few years and I am only 29; let’s just say that Disney World ain’t got nothin’ on this ride.