I'm not sure...

So this week has been a blast...

As the first official and full week of classes has run its course, I am once again left in a wake of despair. I am never prepared for the first full week if classes. Mentally, I just can't handle sitting in one place for too long. It kills me. I need to be able to change things up. I need to be able to say,

"Collin, you are doing well today, so let's go ahead and skip class."

Bad idea. I already know how that scenario turns out. So of course, I will sit through the hours and hours of dread to make it through the day.

Wednesday is a particularly busy day for me this semester. I have class starting at 11:30 until 8:45 tentatively. So I make it to my last class, which happens to be a lab, which happened to get out at 7:00 this week! Well obviously the next step would be to call my roomie, Spencer, to eat Chipotle across the street from campus. So we meet up, we eat, we leave, and as soon as we arrive at our apartment, I realize I left my backpack at Chipotle.

Now before we can continue, let's learn a little more about this bag and its contents...

This was a Jansport blue and grey mesh backpack I had from freshman year of high school... when mesh backpacks were cool? It contained a million defective mechanical pencils and pens, one working pen, two completely full spirals, and a binder with a free lab manual in it. Not much value there.

Anyways, I call Chipotle to see if they found it. They say no. Obviously I drove up there to check and see if it was there. Still no luck. I had nothing left to do other than to assume it was stolen. What a terrible start to my night. Especially since I was about to spend the next 4 hours tutoring people in Business Calculus. Long night. In the midst of all this though, the worst of it all happened. As I was leaving one students apartment, I was frantically trying to scroll through my contacts and dial up my next student to tell her I was on my way. The phone rings and a familiar voice answers the phone. Let's just say, it was someone I had been trying not to talk to. Someone who had hurt me pretty badly. Someone who I had done everything in my power to forget about. All my work until that point seemed useless. All I could do was be kind and pretend I meant to call just to say hi. I needed to pretend I wasn't miserable at the moment. I needed her to think I was happy. Luckily she bought it, and I quickly was off the phone. But it got me thinking...

For a split second, I was calm. Nothing else mattered. My backpack, my busy schedule, the fact that I couldn't find the exit to this gated apartment complex. It didn't matter. I wanted to call back and say I'd been thinking about her like crazy and I missed her. I wanted that calm in my life more often. Luckily, I didn't. Luckily, Chipotle magically found my backpack in their kitchen. Luckily, my week is almost over, and the weekend is here.

But here is this. I have remembered what I fought to forget. At what point does my memory cycle end? I have been looking for meaning in everything I do lately. I have done what I can to populate my life with friends, hobbies, and fun, but when it comes down to everything, they all can seem like distractions. When the attractiveness wears off, I find myself staring at my heart again. I am wondering if this well ever change, or if my life is just going to be one distraction after another.

I want to be someone who is purposeful and driven. I'm praying i find my purpose. Please pray for me also. I need it.

Collin

Good to be home...

It's been far too long since I've been in College Station. It's just good to be home. It's always been great to have a place where you fit. A place where your role is set and secure. It's also good to be with my friends who I'm going to spend the next few months with. I will always love my home, but there is something to be said about my home here.

I'm thankful.

Collin

Is anybody listening?

So... I have been trying to write music again.

It's been a pretty rigorous process too. I am so happy to be back in music in the writing sense because writing new music is like writing a new you. My songs are always grouped in someway as a whole. I can write fast songs, slow songs, sad songs, love songs, mean songs, and so on, but they will always be classified as my "old stuff" as soon as I write more. The "old stuff" can be important to me and meaningful but will always be my past, and the "new stuff" will be what people see me as... until I write more. It is an incredible opportunity but there is a problem... I hate the things I am writing. At least I think I do?

Everything I have written up to this point has had some strong tie to someone who is no longer in my life. So now I feel lost because I am writing to no one. I am writing to myself, and my art seems lost. I used to think that my songs were my way of communicating to her in a way that I was not mature enough to say or convey in any other way. Now I feel like my lyrics are just a physical reinforcement of what I already think with occasional rhymes. I cannot find the heart in my writing that I have had in the past because in the past, I was saying something to someone I loved.

So I had an idea... Maybe writing songs about other people in my life would change the motivation. Apparently that didn't work, because I wasn't emotionally attached to any of them enough to move me the same way. It is all seeming hopeless. Instead of a coping mechanism, the writing has forced me back into the feelings I've been hiding from for months now. I think the depressing thing is I am still singing to her. I am still hoping she hears me in a way that will change things. I am not sure what is worse... singing to no one or singing to someone who won't listen.

Anyways... here are some excerpts of what I've written thus far...

I looked up for something, someone to call my beautiful. When I looked around, the answers I found were more hopeless than it had seemed. Maybe I posses nothing that could ever change how this unfolds, so I'll ignore your lies when you say that you tried every possibility. I guess that's fine. I have no regrets left to find. I chased what I loved until what I loved escaped me.

Wait. Don't come into my life if you don't want to stay. Don't come into the light unless your dark is willing to fade away. Because you know I won't stop you from coming around, and you know I won't stop until the answer is found. East brings in the morning light, and it shines on your face. But before I can open my eyes, the west takes it away. You know I won't stop chasing the fading light, and you know I won't stop until you've blackened the sky.

You're nothing more than desperation. You're nothing more than air. You're a sure shot sign I've become complacent with everything I've come to fear the most since she's not here. You can check the walls and floors around you and realize I'm not there. I'm a bullet to the world around you that you can never bite because you don't have the guts or even care. Where are you now?

Those are 3 different songs, so I hope the lyrics aren't too awful. Thanks for reading and please keep me in your prayers.

Collin

What am I waiting for?

So I have had a a lot of music filled weeks lately and it has me thinking...

I have this gift for music and this immense love of creation, and here I am striving towards a career that had absolutely nothing to do with that. I have been thinking a lot about it lately and with opportunities coming up all over, maybe I should start being more receptive to the idea. Maybe music is my calling or maybe its just my hobby.

I am going to be thinking and praying about this for a while.

Keep me in your prayers

Collin

I still exist...

My friend, Jeff, says that if I'm gonna blog, I need to call it a "blag." Therefor, I am going to call this a "blag" at least twice more.

I have had a pretty dull week. I have come to a few realizations.

Turns out that my phone isn't really necessary anymore. I don't use it near as much as I used to. This is partially a good thing and partially a bad thing. You could say I am more attached to the people around me and the things I am doing this was, but I think I keep feeling a bit empty. This ordeal has not just been a loss of a significant other, it has been a loss of a best friend. This is a change that is less easily overcome by angst-ridden songs and ice cream binges.

On that note, I found a great new ice cream place called "Spoons." I got to have strawberry, vanilla, and cake batter frozen yogurt adorned with strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and of course, CAPTAIN CRUNCH. The best part is you pay be the ounce. So in theory, you could have one morsel of every topping and a bit of every flavor and still pay the same as straight vanilla equivalent in weight. Unfortunately, this makes rocks the obvious ingredient to pass up on my way through the line.

Anyways, I am feeling a bit alone, and the world is not filling me up. I am trying everyday to rely on God and the things he's provided around me to get through it all, but I can't help but question my place in all of this and my plan. It all seems lonely from here, but I guess that is the scary part. There is a quote from a movie I watched this week that is surprisingly smart I thought...

Quit, don't quit? Noodles, don't noodles? You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the "present."

-Master Oogway (Kung Fu Panda)

Maybe I will try dwelling on what can happen today as oppossed to what can happen tomorrow or what has happened in the past. My life is a telling of my decisions and my reactions. I can change so much and so little at the same time. I will try some more this week to be a person who relies on God instead of one who fears the unknown.

Please continue to keep me in your prayers. I appreciate the time it took to read my "blag."

That was only once, so "blag."

God Bless

I did what???

So last night was a night I may never forget. Let me give you some back story...

My band was booked to play a venue at North Gate with a couple good bands from the area. So we did our normal show routine starting about 8PM. We loaded up our stuff, drove to said venue, and then carried it all up a bazillion stairs. Sounds great right? Well turns out said venue does not have all the necessary components to support a live band or someone to run sound... strike one.

After about an hour and a half of live sound gymnastics, we were able to get it up and running for the first band. During the sound check, the venue employee informs us that we had to have someone run the door and take covers ourselves, but if we did, we got to keep all profits... strike two.

Second band gets on next. Turns out they could have helped us out a lot during the setup process, but chose not too. Finally they wrapped up their set and we got ready to play some music. We had a great show and had a lot of people come out. We get off stage, tear down the set, and begin to load up our stuff to leave. As we are carrying out the last bit of things, I see that the venue employee is yelling at the first band about money. It had been a rough night, so I decided to listen in. Apparently, the venue thought that they deserved half of the cover even though they had told us otherwise and we had paid all the bands and a sound guy... strike three.

The guys were getting yelled at about money, and I lost it. I am not sure why, but I felt some urge to defend these nice guys that didn't deserve the crap they were getting. I politely asked the employee what he thought needed to happen and then told him that they were out of luck and that he needed to explain to his employer that he can't change his mind because we actually made money despite the fact that he had not helped us one bit to put on the show.

Well... he got his employer.

This guy was huge! One of those guys who looks like he'd own a bar, and he did of course. He walked up the the group of guys and began to get in their faces to intimidate them. It was working, and it was completely unnecessary. I was about to hand them our cut and just leave the venue, but the switch flipped again. Next thing I knew, the man taller and thicker than me was in my face. My initial thought was, "I have never been hit before. Why didn't I prepare myself for this sooner???" Here is the weird part though. I wasn't afraid. I didn't budge. Here I stood amidst what might have been the most painful night of my life, and yet I wasn't concerned. All I cared about was how hard we worked to make this show happen, how hard we all played, and how much we didn't deserve to be treated like this.

The conversation that ensued, I can't remember one bit. All I remember is the feeling of watching myself from a third person perspective. Next thing I know, we are all outside with 100% of the cover. People congratulated me. They made jokes, told stories, and did impressions, but all I could think about was why I became that person for those five minutes. I couldn't figure it out. My buddy, Spencer, said I have a "rage" inside of me now that allows me to emotionally hulk out every now and then. He said he had it when his girlfriend dumped him, and it would get him to be super confrontational. Maybe that's what happened to me, but I think I have determined an alternative explanation. I am the kind of person that needs a cause. I need someone or something to fight for. Maybe it's the loss of what I've been fighting for that made me so rashly cling to something else to protect. I don't know exactly, although I think I can channel this to be a good thing.

My good friends, The Canvas Waiting say this...

"I would like to die a martyr, but some days I don't know which side I'm on. So give me a cause and I will go and start a war. Give me a gun, just tell me who this bullets for. You can bleed me dry even if it takes all night."

Then this morning in church we had a good lesson over the introduction to Ruth that I though correlates. When Naomi is trying to convince Ruth to leave her and seek protection with a new husband and new gods, Ruth says this...

"Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me."

My task this week is to find my cause. Maybe after last night, I can stick up for others and myself better. I have a new confidence that I didn't have until now. I'll keep searching.

Please keep me in your prayers and thanks for reading this.

God bless

What's next?

It's been about 239.5 hours by my count since my relationship status for the past 32 months has changed. I won't go into too many details but let's just say it was seemingly out of nowhere and while the bittersweet taste of Taco Tuesday remained in my mouth. More than anything taken out of my life, I felt like I was filled to the brim with questions I didn't know how to answer. Why? Why tonight? What do I do now? What do I do tomorrow? What do I do when I'm happy? Who do I call when I'm sad? Why does the world always leave me like this? Do I write music? Do I write letters? Do I post an awful Facebook status? How do I make her feel as hurt as I am? Do I wait for her? Do I try and change her mind? Where can I go from here?

I felt embarrassed. I felt like Galileo must've felt after he his heliocentric universe was rejected. He was sentenced to house arrest for 10 years until he died in 1642 for saying the sun was the center of our universe. In 1992, 350 years after his death, the church issued an official apology for the way he was accused and punished. Is that how my life will be? Will my resolution come too late?

All I could do was pray tomorrow would be better, but tomorrow only brought more questions and more problems. For example, do I shave myself a Hitler mustache?? I don't know. I seriously debated it for some reason. Why did I identify with him of all people? Do I dress nicely for the day? I figured out on the bus ride to school that the cliche scene from every movie, when all the break up songs play everywhere, is an actuality. I found myself thinking, "Why Clint Black? WHY?!" Then I drifted off the a scene from my favorite girl movie, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. There's this line about great love and what happens when someone looses that. The person closes the book on that love and finds the one that they love second best. Do I begin my search for the one I love second best? Do I settle for the one who makes me almost as happy? This is the question that bothers me most? Is this where life forces me to settle? Is this the spot where my hopes and me expectations are thrown away?

I don't know.

There are so many seemingly rhetorical questions that I feel so uneasy about leaving unanswered.

All I know is this. God is good. He has blessed me with a support system that I cannot begin to understand or deserve. While I remain broken and defeated tonight, my God remains strong and everlasting.

"In my darkest night, you brighten up the skies. A song will rise. I will sing a song of hope, sing along. God of heaven, come down, heaven come down. Just to know that you are near is enough. God of heaven come down, heaven come down."

Thanks Robbie Seay.

Thank you everyone.

Please keep me in your prayers.

God Bless