AAAAHHHHHHH... THAT'S BETTAH!!!!!

so ummmmmmm...... blah blah blah. in big bear. you all know this because you are the only ones who read this and we hung out two days ago. it is so good to be here. amber and i were talking on the way down to the ann lynn show the other day and i was hit hard by the things she was encouraging me with. just how us big bears, no matter how far apart physically, emotionally, relationally, mentally or any other "ally" that we still have something that is beautiful and powerful. i can get so fucking insecure sometimes. all she had to do was remind me of how wonderful you all are and it switched everything in my head. not that i could ever forget that but it was just how she put it that really got me. there are so many things that are really good about coming home. it is good to unearth the past sometimes and home is always the best place to do this. so where am i right now? floating along the surface. i feel like i am this fat kid in a pool with arm floaties on and i want so badly to go under water and touch the bottom but i am so buoyant right now and it is driving me crazy! do you ever talk with an old friend about the past and realize, "dang i kind enjoy and miss who i used to be" i guess in this circumstance i am speaking mainly spiritually, but it definitely applies in other areas too. i am back from nashville and what turned out to be a wonderful and beautiful and hard and dark and learning experience. we've returned with and album, a piece of art that i am more proud of than anyone will ever know. i could personally play these songs for anyone and if everyone hated it i would still love it and cherish it. i was standing on the back porch of the studio like fifteen minutes before we left for LA and i finally realized "this is why God has been putting all these crazy thoughts and dreams in me since i was a kid. this is why i've dropped out of most of the jr. colleges in southern california. this is why i sucked at football. this is why i get so frustrated sometimes that it brings me to tears. this is a life long dream that i've had and it is here." there is not an ounce of shame or regret or holding anything back. every once in a while a friend will talk to me with this kind of cautious concern and ask me things like "so do you really enjoy these songs" or "...playing bass" or "...being in this band" as if i have sold my soul to live in some cheap, plastic, fake, distant land far away from the warm comfortable glow of elitism. i now realize though that i need to stop wasting my time trying to please people or gain approval. i need to stop caring about being misunderstood or judged. i will not be sorry any more for things that are not mistakes! all i want to care about is showing love to those around me and to stop giving only if i get. fear and insecurity is what gets in the way of love. we are the only ones who cause ourselves to not show love. weird. i usually forget that idea just as quickly as i remember it. how do we change that? i honestly want to know. what do i have to do to truly show love in a way that makes things change for the good. how do i show love to other people that causes them to truly know that they are loved. i know the way i have to think and be and feel about myself and others. i know what to do to show people that i love them. i feel like we all have a pretty good grasp on what it is all about and how to do it. why, then is it such a hard thing to make it who you truly are? i know all the typical shit that friends and family and christians are supposed to give as answers to these questions. maybe that is why i am having such a hard time with this. my whole life i have only just adopted certain sayings or answers that you apply to different questions. this is something that i have known and hated for a long time. let's come up with our own answers that we've discovered from our own lives. not what our parents learned from the jesus movement or calvary chapel. that was good, but it was for them. those were the answers that their generation needed to hear. but not ours. we are a different kind of people, not better or worse, just different. let's get dirty. let's search and let's be ok with making mistakes or taking wrong turns over and over and over again. let's bring grace back into the picture. lets stop being weird to our friends that are searching right now. lets encourage it!! let's meet up in random towns and talk until the early morning. lets stop caring so much about cool and/or trying to act like we don't care about cool! just let it be, there is so much more that is so much more important.
time and distance are not strong enough to even make a dent in what we all have. nothing can change what we have but it is our choice. it is our choice to say that we won't accept yes or no as an answer. we will find our own answers and find truth by making our own trails. i am so ready for this! i am ready to get scratched and get lost and confused and passionate and to fall in love!