Perfct

I haven't written in two weeks because every day feels like a week, completely jammed with emotion and doing. Even vegetation is meaningful, when it turns into a night of whispers. And how sobering, that as we speak our deepest convictions, the raging validation that God pours onto us, a roommate staggers in, collapses in bed, and cries.

Its been a month; technically, everyone is just getting to know each other. For us, though, it doesn't feel like there's been a passage of time at all. Because there wasn't. Every minute and hour of the day has been sucked dry. Every night is another year previously lost. Nothing is romantic - nothing. People look at us and ask if we're siblings. Back in Austin, they think they've found a missing triplet. Everyone is skeptical, and I can assure you that there is no one more skeptical than us. This is objectively crazy.

But if you ever see us interact, the way we talk to people in complete synchronization, and the baffled looks on the small group leader's face... When people ask, "Did you know each other before?" and we think back to...
...sitting in Shanghai's hotel with a prostitute next door, looking at that chat bubble...
...drawing comics, then seeing a potentially irking message notification...
...sharing artwork...
...talking, but most importantly, responding...
...and never playing games, just talking, talking about ideas, and God...
...and walking alone for two days in the 100 degrees of Austin, Texas...
...and sitting alone with a computer, at retreat, brimming with questions...
...and reading Blankets, and feeling, consequently completely connected...
...and seeing sunrise in Naperville for the first time...
...and we say no. Of course we didn't know.

And being, is so easy, because all we have to do is live. Impressing people comes from just being real, not chasing anything. And the love, from AAIV - the food, the one on ones, the intense Bible studies - how welcome it is after 18 years. I've missed the body of Christ.

How interesting it is that now I can sit in Trillium, skipping 2210 for the third time, feeling the same pain rip through my guts but not through my heart.

Milky Way

It is impossible to ignore the weight of purpose here.

There are the expected staggerers limping from college town and the once in a while RA in drag. There are mosquitos, outright nerds, lost romantics, and bathroom stall hiders. The best badminton players - actually, the only badminton players - are men. Those people without real photos of themselves on Facebook turn out to be some of the most well-read scholars. The workout-holics stand chest out and only raise their arms a certain height. The workaholics are buried in Uris, completely in flow. That guy plays piano at RPCC every single night. That one gets high on biking, that one on proofs, that one on pussy. We all interact ceaselessly, under the quilt of Cornell.

I would be a fool to dismiss the inevitability of every occurence, so fresh and raw and meaningful. We run into that one Cru leader, but also that one, but also that one. The people who stay in conversation with us, who sit with us in silence for no spoken reason, seek a greater perhaps, a peace buried among us. The first time I ventured to have a spontaneous conversation, was with a classmate so forgettable that it might not have happened, except that by the next time we had lunch, we were talking about suicide, and purpose, and God. There aren't that many of us - I know because we've walked the entire plantations, Triphammer, college town, Commons, the main portion of Cayuga. Every one walks forward, granted, often with passion, but nevertheless with some motivation to progress. But no one looks upwards. No one watches God tear away the clouds and reveal his baffling universe.

The Milky Way is beautiful, of course. Shooting stars never lose their magic; sunsets maintain awesomeness. But that is not the point. The point is that the stars are full of conviction. They burn and blink and spiral as close and as far away as the soul next to me. They are flawless, unscathed by distraction, completely and utterly whole. And that is how they make us feel - full, and wildly in love.

I don't need anybody. No one needs any one. There isn't a single person in this world who can take away the poison in my meals, the fatigue in my legs and mind and heart. No one can tell me to leave my dorm and surround myself with better people than myself. The dorm room is claustrophobic. It makes monsters inside men, for everyone. Even the townhouses can induce unfathomable loneliness. Anything, even a walk into a suspicous smelling 7-11 is better than being so restricted. So I'm trying, really, awfully hard, to move, so I can read and write and draw and love. I fall short more often than I would like, but less than I anticipated. Every cafe, every work space, every library, brims with the buzz of life. I'm here now, at the Libe Cafe, 80% confronting the day.

I'm in a better state, but it all feels very beautiful. Suffering has meaning, even encouragement. Friends are real, accepting, unprecedently passionate. Every walk matters, but every outfit doesn't. This institution is so rich, in every way. God was merciful enough to let me in. How dare I let it go to waste.