Saying Goodbye Again: For Everything There Is A Season (2020)

My blog's URL, once I relaunched it back in February of last year, contained the phrase "for everything there is a season," followed by 2019. This was for two reasons: 1.) the phrase on its own, followed by "blogspot.com," was taken. So I had to add something else; 2.) I chose 2019 because it was not only the year I restarted it, but it was also in the spirit and time behind restarting it. My previous girlfriend encouraged me to use it to post faith-related stuff, and I had also had a dream in January 2019 that seemed to finally signal an "ok" to resuming, after taking many years off. As for my vision, you can click on the link here. I had no idea if I was going to meet my goals, let alone what the finished product would look like.

If you've been following the whole time, you might've surmised that I didn't exactly reach my big-picture goal. I don't have some other blog that this launched that earns me money, like I had originally planned. I did hit some smaller picture goals, like shifting what I post about and how I post, compared with when I blogged previously as a young man in my 20s.

Anyway, today's post title is in the same spirit as the URL title. 2020 is different from 2019, most certainly in a lot of ways, but for me it's different because I've concluded that it's time to once again say goodbye. I got my fix. Even though I successfully stayed away from blogging for almost six years, I also periodically had dreams during that time about blogging again. (I certainly had enough blog-worthy material in my life that I could have posted at any point in that time!)

I didn't post this in my first return post, but I wish to share a verse that I now realize formed my return last year, as well as my going at this time. From Ecclesiastes 3:7, NIV (second half)

"a time to be silent and a time to speak..."

I won't rule out returning perhaps sometime down the road, very likely at a reduced rate. But if I don't, I will happily say that I'm grateful for the opportunity to have gone on another adventure, to get the writing juices stirred again, even if only for a while.

Revisiting what-ifs

I saw on TV once (National Geographic Channel?) about a guy's harrowing brush with death in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Originally planning to kayak from one Hawaiian island to another, he found himself so far out in the ocean that he could see two (or even three) mountain peaks faintly in the distance, that themselves were far apart. In the end, he was rescued (and this point of reference that he radioed to the search and rescue team is what led them to find him). But what stands out from this story is the perspective. These mountains that he referenced (at this point, I don't remember which ones they were) could only be seen at the precise angles that he listed, from way far out.

As I continue to reflect, heal, grow, take one step forward and one step back, lather, rinse, repeat, etc., I'm starting to see some significant points of reference in my story like that. A thought reoccurred to me about various points in my life where I made a decision that created ripple effects, some of which are still present today.

For a few years after I graduated from college, I spent a lot of time thinking about how much of an impact my college experience had on me. In 2010 I posted on the question "if you could do it over again, would you?" If memory serves, I believe it came off a question a friend of mine had asked (more as an ice-breaker), likely on Facebook. I naturally thought it so profound that I reposted it, and received a few answers, one of which was this: "only if I could know what I know now."

This, in a nutshell, is why I don't like what-if questions. The thing is, if I were to go back to the past with the option of making a different decision, I would also lose the lessons I learned. The truth is, at any given time, I know what I know, and I don't know what I don't know. Now, in the case of deja vu, where I come across another choice point that is very similar to a previous one, I do have the option of reflecting on "what happened last time," and I have the option of choosing to apply what I've learned -- or not.

[To wit: I recently bought a new used car. This was the second time I've done this. The first time was a complete disaster, but also one I brought upon myself. I'd purchased a used vehicle from a dealership as-is with no warranty without getting it checked out. It turned out to be a lemon. This time, I test-drove a used vehicle from my mechanic's shop, had three other people test-drive it, had another mechanic inspect it thoroughly, and negotiated the price down a little bit. That said, I learned the lessons I learned precisely because of the experience I went through the first time.]

In the aforementioned post from 2010, I chose to focus on the question around my college choice. In retrospect -- yes, I can now see about three or four mountain peaks that are hundreds of miles apart, all in one perspective -- it's not the biggest "what-if" question I have about myself. That award goes to the decision I made to come back to Chicago for high school. In the same way, foresight is not 20/20. Plus, I was heck-bent on returning home. There were many negative surprises waiting for me, either upon my return or upon the advent of the new school year. But there was no way that I would've known any of that until I came home.

I suppose if I'd had a few more tangible experiences out in New York that might've simulated more of a "home" environment (not that it didn't, but not enough to sway my heart to stay, evidently), I might have stayed. In eighth grade, the time came for my classmates and me to apply for high schools. Many of them continued on to other boarding schools, some of them all-boys boarding schools, just like St. Thomas is. I remember a fair we went to one day halfway through the year sometime where all the big East Coast boarding schools had a table: Groton, St. Andrew's, Chatham, and so on. I had zero interest. I had made it known to my parents that I was coming back to Chicago for high school. To my mom's credit, she researched a whole bunch of private schools in the area and boiled it down to two: North Shore Country Day, and St. Ignatius College Prep.

Even though I've returned to New York a few times since I graduated, the question of possibly moving there didn't come up until I began dating someone I met online who lived there. Even though it didn't explicitly come out, I suspect that my deciding I didn't want to move to New York factored in its ending. And consequently, I have to wonder if how I felt about New York twenty years ago when I was living there was what led me to my decision just last year.

In addition to my college choice, other what-ifs include the choice to move to New York for the purpose of the relationship I was in at the time, at least one or two other relationship opportunities that I was actually ready for but either didn't realize it or did realize it but wasn't willing to change, as well as a key decision to leave a job because the company relocated. Even now, I'm thinking through going back to school, and I've been looking through what to study. Even though I understand that, as a Christian, nothing matters more than what God wants, even decisions that seem small to Him can still be huge for us.

Walking in faith is tricky in this way: in times when I've taken risks (good risks) in life with no foresight and no clue as to how what I'm doing will turn out, I will sometimes see signs or hear indications as I keep taking steps. Rarely will these indications tell me how it will all end. But often I will get a guidepost or a guideline. The scary part is choosing to trust that, when I do absolutely need a guidepost, it will appear, even though human rhyme or reason scream not to make a decision without having all the data in front of me. What I'm finding though as I get older (relatively speaking), is that situations and the lessons surrounding the what-ifs actually can provide some of that data.

When I first started going to the Evanston Vineyard, one of the messages I heard was that God can't steer the boat if I don't paddle. I get the impression that many churches preach about not steering (i.e. trying to take control) -- that's God's job. But I'm not sure how many churches also preach about the importance of walking the walk. How we build our faith in Jesus (I know, easy for me to say, a lot harder for me to do) is by walking that walk. When I walk wrong, I'll get corrected, painful as it is. When I walk right, I'll sometimes receive confirmation, but oftentimes I won't hear anything, which makes me nervous. But as long as I keep walking, I'll learn more things.