Valentine's Day

When I was a kid, I thought you were really corny. You seem like a holiday invented by women so that men would spend their money on them. Once high school came around though, I started to wish I could experience you more. Now here I am. I am 34 years old and I can truly say I do not have one memorable Valentine's Day date in my life.

You bother me now. You bother a lot of people, to be honest. You show up every year, not too long after Christmas. You sell your rings and other jewelry on TV and I'm tired of getting all the emails from three different flower companies.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like love or that I want to avoid love. I love love; it's probably the best thing that can happen to a person. But somewhere along the way, I brought into this lie that says if I'm not in love, then I'm not really alive. I brought the lie that says if I love someone, but then they stopped loving me or if they started loving somebody else, then I must not have much worth or value.

If I continue to believe that lie, it's going to create such a level of inadequacy, create a hole in me so large, that nobody else could ever even begin to approach filling it. I've tried filling it with material things, with work, with food, with crushes, with drinks, with music, and none of it works.

I think there have been too many times in the last 20 years where I mixed up girls for God. It seems that I'm always my most comfortable when I have initial interest in a girl and begin to learn about her. That was the place I always seemed to have as a young man, and in reality, I haven't escaped it. Even though I am more confident person than I used to be, I have looked too much to women for validation of my self worth. But to think of the unfair pressure that must put on a girl. It's not fair to her. Lord knows no matter who I meet, she will have her own flaws and her own issues and her own baggage and I know I am not qualified to fix her up.

I'm sure in two weeks, I will be tempted to ignore you. It will be a Sunday without football, the week after the Super Bowl. I'm sure I will see one Facebook post after another about how wonderful love is and how some happy somebody is in their current relationship. And my first instinct will be to curse my fate and play a sad song about unrequited love.

You know what, I don't want to do that. There are so many other kinds of love that are so important in this world. I have a small family, but I have a family that cares about me. I have many acquaintances who care and a few friends, who I know really do care about me and are interested in how I'm doing. Just because I'm not taking a girl out to dinner, buying roses, and ending the night with a deep kiss on my lips, does not mean that I don't have self worth. It does not mean that my life cannot be meaningful, wonderful, and exciting.

I have placed too much importance on you and what you represent. I resolve to not do that anymore. It's not that I don't care. It's just that you don't own me.

The futility of dating

It really is both amazing me and scaring me how many people I know are getting engaged, married, and having kids. There are so many times I see a girl is hooked up with a guy and all I can think to myself is "How the hell did he manage to snag her?" And then, I inevitable ask myself the same damn question. "What's wrong with me?!"

I know it's a dangerous question and one that I should not be asking myself. However, I can't help think what was wrong with me compared to this other fellow. No, this not a soliloquy about a desire to get married, or have a family. I don't need that to be fulfilled. And it's not fair to ask any other person to fulfill you and meet all those unmet needs and to clean your crap up.

The thing is I feel really conflicted. Some days, I tell myself that I'm not going to think about dating for a long time. Yet I can't deny that I'd like to date and then settle down with the right one. And God knows I'm not getting any younger, my physical peak is probably behind me. But I've come to this conclusion. I suck at chasing and pursuing women I'm interested in. I've never even had Date 1 with a woman who I've chased. The connection, and I use that word loosely, just is there; it can't be manufactured. That said, what is the deal with women when they are single? They say they want men to pursue them and be open about how they feel. Then, when we do pursue, we immediately get shot down. Maybe, most of them just have their eye on one guy and are waiting for him, while the rest of us just get to hope for a chance, but that hope is all in vain. The few women who may have looked at me that way, well, I settled for them because I had no other prospects. At least I didn't marry any of them!

And I have been rejected so many times, that I may as well be the reject king. And women have these rehearsed lines that they pull out and use on us guys. Every woman who looks halfway decent or has something close to a personality has a full arsenal of reject lines. Guys, we know the lines. Here are a few of my favorites, along with the translations of what they really mean:

1) "I appreciate you asking me, but..." (I wish you hadn't opened your mouth.) This was used on me by a girl I have liked for years. When I finally had the nerve to do something about it, this is what I got.

2) "My life is too complicated." (There are too many other guys spending their money on me and there ain't no room for you in the schedule, bub.)

3) "I have a boyfriend." (My cat and pints of Ben and Jerry's.)

4) "I'm focusing on my career." (My boring 8 hours per day with my annoying co-workers and jerk of a boss is still better than dating you.)

5) "I'm not interested in dating right now" (The right guy just hasn't come along for her yet.)

6) Probably the most usual deal now is not responding to texts and calls anymore. (Get out of my life!)

Oh and I'm typing this six hours before I have my second speed dating event tonight! Who knows if something might actually happen.

Six months from my mid-30's...

Hopefully, nobody I know is reading this. But when you really have no other place to express yourself, well, I guess that's one reason why blogging and journaling exist.

As I approach 35 years old, a milestone that I will reach in exactly 6 months and 1 day, it strikes me how I am changing. Physically, I'm noticing changes, My hair is not as full on my head as it used to be. There's a bit of gray in there too. I find myself dealing with aches and pains that just decided to show up from out of nowhere. That's in spite of me doing DDP yoga several days a week.

Socially, it feels like I'm starting over, which I have had to do so many times. I just don't feel like I fit at Willow Creek church, in terms of the focus on young adults. I'm certainly not a fit in my old section. I've considered going to new churches, and I have dropped into a couple of new ones since I left my job at Gino's East a month ago. But even at some of the ones that I used to go to, I feel like a stranger. Now, some may say that I need to be assertive and introduce myself to someone. Maybe there's a small part of me that wants to be noticed and valued.

But my mental state is the part that I'm thinking about. I look at the changes over the last six months are so and it's startling. My confidence is higher, I have a job that may turn into something that I can invest in over the long run, and I think I have a pretty good group of friends. Yet I struggle with some old demons that I don't know if I will ever conquer. My anger, my fear of rejection, and beating myself up over crap that really isn't even worth thinking about anymore. Some of it can be from years ago, it doesn't matter. It goes hour by hour. I can feel so good and confident about where I'm going. Then something small can go wrong at work and I feel so unworthy of even one of the gifts I've been given by God. There's one lyric in the song "In Christ Alone" that I cannot bear to sing. "No guilt in life, no fear in death." I still cannot sing that first part. If I did, I would be lying to myself.

And with the work issues I've dealt with over the last couple of years, I understand why I make such a big deal out of the slightest thing not going perfectly at work. I've been on unemployment twice now and been denied it once as well. In a 3 year span between 2013 and 2015, I had a full time job for 12 months and I loathed it. Yet, when I lost that job, it was one of the two or three most devastating moments of my life. Ranks right up there with my dad leaving us when I was a teenager.

So now I look ahead and I know some more changes must happen. This year, I want to establish my own residence. Especially with Maggie gone, I'm not needed in the house that I live in now. And I've been here 12 years, but I would be fine with walking away. I also want to learn more about nutrition and continue to modify my diet. I don't know if it's realistic, but I haven't seen my 6-pack since I was in third grade and I'd like to change that by the end of 2016. I have a 32 or 33 inch waist, and I've had that for a while so it's not a ton of excess to drop, but I'm going to have get that food thing down. And working 12 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week, working out is one of the toughest things to get into my schedule. So it'll take some sacrifice and discipline. And I want to get back into reading the Bible. I haven't been a regular reader of it in maybe 15 years. Maybe 3-4 days a week for 15 minutes.

Random inspiration

"I gave my all, but I think my all may have been too much."

Wow. Those words were penned and recorded in the song "Just Once" in 1981, the year I was born. How did I not discover them until tonight?

Three tips to great chicken parmesan.

• Pound the chicken breast flat; 
• Use panko bread crumbs;
• Broil it layering it as fried chicken breast, parmesan, marinara, and fresh mozzarella.

"Button Off of My Shirt" Ronnie Milsap. I cannot hear that song enough.

It feels so good to have a friend with whom you can be real and vulnerable and not fear their reaction.

I feel part of me is dead without my iPod. Why Apple stopped making the classic model, it makes no sense at all. I need my music on the go.

I'm playing volleyball tomorrow for the first time in a while, I hope I can still dive like used to,

Inconsistent

It is true that suffering breeds creativity. Joy can inspire as well. But let's be honest, for those like me who find writing therapeutic, people might think we're the most miserable group walking God's green earth. Hey, it's not the worst way to express yourself.

I don't even want to go into detail about how the Jets choked away an ideal opportunity at the playoffs in a Week 17 meltdown in Buffalo. I won't go into detail about my disappointment in the Mets poor off-season to this point. That said, sign Yoenis. The Rangers have been horrific for six weeks, but after getting five of six points against Dallas, Washington, and Boston, things may be turning around. They have the Islanders on Thursday night and they better win it.

But January is in full force. We're barely hitting 15 degrees. The snow comes down several days a week. It's frigid and bitter. And I feel like I'm absolutely losing myself and I hate myself for it. In the span of a week, I've lost my ipod and my cell phone case. Only $250 to replace them. I don't know how I can live without my music. It calms me, it motivates me, it drives me, it levels me.

I tried speed dating last Saturday. Why? Because I'm a fool, that's why. Nine men, six women. Some decent ones, but...nothing exciting. Maybe two of the six would get a B grade. Yet, I selected three women who I thought were at least okay. And 72 hours later, I have zero matches. Waste of 30 bucks.

And today at work. It's just defining to me what a mess life is sometimes. I helped at the student affairs desk for three hours, per my boss's request. I never got out of my chair. I greeted dozens of students, I offered them information about everything from tutors to the CTA, to student employment, to rape counseling. I met the entire career services department as they walked past. I felt pretty good about my role and that I mattered.

Then, an hour before the end of my shift, I take a short break. My freaking boss catches me on my phone and gets upset. Ten minutes later, a co-worker gets mad at me because I didn't handle one of her students the way she thought I should. I had to go away. I walked away for ten minutes before returning to my desk and immediately leaving for the day, fill of frustration and self doubt.

I'm so mad at myself that I'm having a Brooklyn lager on the train. A pint for five bucks. I was hoping to be by myself, but of course, right after the train leaves the station, some 60 year old dude comes along and sits next to me on a car that was half empty. Is it bad that I want to stab in the throat with a pencil? I just want to forget the world sometimes.

I have a new bed at least, I upgraded to a queen. It's visibly better than that old hammock I used to have. My old bed dipped down straight in the middle, so I'd always sleep on my side and on one corner or another. What a difference it is to have a cross piece in the middle of the frame.

On these cold days where so much goes wrong, I just have to wonder what it will take to be content and relaxed.