go

the summer of age eighteen.  it seems like it was only yesterday and i was enjoying my summer of age seventeen. hopping rivers and tracking down snakes. now, things have changed substantially.  i've been working from sun up till sun down most days.  i have taken on new activities like biking, running, swimming, reading, and camping.  i have not spent many days with old friends.  i am about to leave.  i am about to change everything. i am twitching for the change to come sooner.  pushing time seems to be the only way we can have a hold on it.  push, push, push.  plan, plan, plan. stuff your days with deadlines. we can push time forward, but we cannot grab it and stop it.  there's no going back.   i say that time is slipping out of my hands like a train and i cannot stop it, then I turn around and push the train faster, trying my hand at control. 

i am dependent on God for the money i need for college, the friends i need to encourage and keep me company, and the direction that i am to go in.  

right now the plan is to go as hard and as fast as i can, learning everything i can from anyone i can, doing anything i can in different countries, languages, environments, from blue collar jobs to careers to hobbies like mountain climbing, hunting, fishing, mountain biking, canoeing, snowboarding, and gardening, from peaceful meditation to neck-snapping karate moves, find a woman, a real woman picked like a berry from God's favorite wilderness, take her with me, keep going, keep going, different lifestyles, different music, different food until i have to settle down, stay in one place as i teach my children what is good and noble and pure and praiseworthy, get a job that pays well, spend less than i make, live simply, until the kids are in college, then i will pick back up and write some new songs, give my kids the majority of my money, and become like them in my dependence once more, and all the while write about it, write my butt off about the hedonistic nature of God, the overwhelming love of Christ, the blood and fire of youth, the testosterone and estrogen of marriage, the mistakes of parenting, the fulfilling of dreams, the serving of others, the simplicity of abundant life, and i will spend myself on love, love for people, my wife, my children, my God until the First and the Last says Stop.