Surprise! I'm Back (Just Roll With It, Okay?)

PREVIOUSLY ON COOKIES FOR BREAKFAST...

"What if this is the wrong decision? What if I'm overreacting because of all the emotions I'm experiencing right now, and all the changes I'm trying to make in my life, and I hit "Publish" and immediately feel the urge to keep blogging, and I post something else, and I look like an overly emotional idiot?"

***

A little over a year ago, I quit this blog for good. Or, at least, I thought I did. I was SURE that it was the right thing to do. At the time, maybe it was. However, at the time I was also an overly emotional idiot.

Yes, Chris of 2013 did have a few good reasons for stepping down from this blog. It was kind of a cluttered mess. It had no clear direction. It consumed a lot of time for very little recognition. But I think the main reason I quit this blog with such melodramatic finality was because, at the time, I felt like that was how life was. All good things have to end, and if something has to end, it might as well be on my own terms. Right?

If that sounds like a depressing outlook, that's because it totally is. Sorry.

In late 2013, I was a mopey sap, and this blog allowed me to wallow in that. I was struggling with bouts of depression, and my future looked super unsure at the time. I'd come home and sit in front of my computer and listen to soothing but kinda sorrowful instrumental mood music and disappear into my own thoughts, only to regurgitate my own thoughts back onto my computer screen.

This blog was always open in a tab on my computer, because if things were getting too real for me, I wanted to be able to go somewhere that was distinctly not real. It's really hard to describe, but for numerous and various reasons, this blog brought me a comfort that I should have been getting from friends, or family, or, you know, GOD.

It was kinda pathetic.

So in a rare moment of clarity, I decided to expunge this whole website from my life. I wouldn't let it be a crutch. I was going to move on and not look back. As inspired as my actions may have seemed, they showed a lack of foresight. I couldn't have imagined that my feelings towards a thing at that specific point in time would not, in fact, remain the same for all eternity.

I didn't realize I might want this back.

The one really good reason for me to quit was that I needed this blog, and I realized it wasn't a good thing to need. It had become a life support. An idol. It was replacing a lot of stuff in my life, by being the place I went when I didn't want to actively confront the fact that I was not in the best place emotionally.

But that was never it's inherent purpose. It didn't have to be that, it just was, because what this blog really is is a reflection of who I am. It reflects what I've been thinking on, and how Chris of 2013 had been thinking he was in need of comfort, in need of purpose, and in need of direction.

If I'm to pick up Cookies for Breakfast again, it has to be something that is purely for self expression and personal enjoyment. If I ever let it become something I need to do, whatever that may look like, I'll need to back off again. This cannot become I place I go to for escape, but rather it should be a place I go to for leisure. Some people may see those as the same thing, but trust me, if you've ever had an unhealthy attachment to something similar to what I've tried to describe, you know they are not.

That being said, I'm going to make a promise, here and now, to never quit this blog again. Ever. I may take breaks, vacations, or sabbaticals. I may go through dry periods where I have nothing to post. My other blog, christhemissionary.blogspot.com, may start to take precedence as I move forward into whatever God has for me. I might see the warning signs of developing a dependence on this blog again and have to distance myself. I may not post for years at a time.

I'll never quit it again though, because that's too final. I don't want that finality anymore. Back then, it seemed poetic. It seemed kinder than the inevitable slow dissent into obscurity. It almost seemed heroic, like I was keeping it from ending up being something I'd have to blame for my downfall by letting it go on good terms.

I don't think like that anymore, though. I'm a much more hopeful person now. Or I at least hope I am.

There has been more personal growth for me emotionally over the past year than in any other year prior that I can recall. I've traveled the world, met many amazing new people, and developed a much deeper personal relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

As I write this, I'm still in a time of grief. I'm mourning the way of life I grew accustomed to as a missionary, and still figuring out how I fit back into the world I'm in now. In recent days there has been a lot of sadness and stress, and unlike last year, there's a lot of legitimate reasons to be sad all the time. Thing is, I'm not. Or at least, not nearly as much as I was last year.

This is because I'm so much more hopeful now. I see potential in things that I would have given up on a year ago. This blog has potential. Potential to be a fun and rewarding creative outlet for me to share the gobbledygook that is in my head with anyone interested.

Sure, Chris quit this blog for good in 2013. I acknowledge that and respect his decision to do so. However, Chris of 2014 is an extremely different person. Chris of 2013 swore to never touch this blog again, so Chris of 2014 will have to carry the torch from now on, hopefully to pass it to someone much more well suited for the job in the future. Someone who's name will probably be Chris.

Maybe I'm still being an overly emotional idiot. I could have just said, "Hey, I'm back, sorry for making it weird, I won't do that again" and then just continued as usual. It's not as if I have a huge following who were super upset when I quit and will now be conflicted as to how to react to my return.

I can live with being an overly emotional idiot though. I'm just better at admitting when I was wrong. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Huh.

Well.

This sure feels weird, doing this whole blogging thing again.

I wonder how I should end this post?



To be continued...indefinitely. 

***

TL;DR version? I'm back, sorry for making it weird, I won't do that again.

Surprise! I Quit.

    This is officially the last time I will post on this blog. My hands are shaking and my eyes are welling up with tears, but I know this is the right thing for me to do.

    Let me explain.

    Yesterday, I hit a wall. Literally. I fell back against a wall, weeping, in a room full of people who were worshiping God. I was burnt out. I felt the need to feel close to God, but the way I'm living my life now, that's not going to happen.

    To be clear, Cookies for Breakfast is not the reason I'm far from God. It is, however, a massive part of my life that is completely unnecessary. As much as I enjoy blogging, it is immensely time consuming and distracting.

    I want to some day become a Director of Christian Education, or DCE. To do that, it would be nice if I had a steady prayer life and was much, much more dedicated to reading, studying, and getting to intimately know my Bible.

    Do you want to know how many times I've come home, read my Bible, and had a bit of prayer time before bed in the past year (without being told to)?

    Not once.

    Do you know how many times I've come home and at least opened my blog and tried to write something?

    Almost every night since I started it.

    That isn't right. That isn't good. It's not the main reason I feel distant from God, but it is a contributing factor. I write about God all the time, but only because I feel unmotivated to finish any of the dozens of other unfinished posts I have sitting in my draft box.

    What I want to do is restart my whole life with the knowledge and wisdom I've gained in these 18 years of existence. Sadly, science has not yet provided me with a way to do that, so instead I'm trying ever so hard to become a new person with the same body.

    Basically, I want to live life!

    I want to read more. I want to play video games more. I want to get my license. I want to spend more time outside (not counting at work). I want to learn guitar and/or re-learn piano. I want to write a song or two. I want to read many, many other blogs, learn what I like about them, and how to incorporate those aspects into a new blog someday. I want to study philosophy and theology on my own time. I want to prepare myself for college. I want to have a girlfriend someday in the near future. I want to write a book. I want to help lead worship at my church. I want to give starting a youth group another go. I want to learn how to cook food that doesn't come covered in plastic with cooking instruction on the back. I want to walk all the way around Lake Superior on my own and marvel at God's creation, and spread the Gospel while I do it. I want to spend more time with my family and friends. I want to be a camp counselor next summer. I want to become a more transparent and less hypocritical individual. I want to learn a new language. I want to clean my freaking room. I want to try to go three days without eating, just to see if I can. I want to go three days eating nothing but Frosted Flakes, or some other kind of cereal. I want to watch Breaking Bad (once the whole show is on Netflix).

    I want to have a personal connection with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and I want to learn everything I possibly can about Him and how to become closer to Him.

    Will all of that happen? Hopefully someday. Those are all things that I want to do with the copious amounts of free time that I have, instead of sitting in front of a computer trying to come up with something that is both meaningful and entertaining that only a couple of people will read.

    Don't get me wrong, I feel overwhelmingly honored and blessed to have ever brought happiness to any of you through this blog. Everything I wrote, whether it was a list of contrived reasons why a Disney story is actually deeply unsettling , or a heartfelt and deeply personal apology to my wonderful mother for not getting her anything for Mother's Day, I wrote because I wanted somebody to get something out of it.

    I wanted to entertain, to inspire, to teach, and to have fun expressing myself, and by golly, I did! At times I was quite serious and poured my heart and soul into each sentence I typed. Other times I was just off the walls silly.

    However, if I'm honest, the underlying motive was almost always that I couldn't think of any other way to express myself. I like writing and I type fast, so blogging seemed like a great way to think publicly.

    But right now, I don't really feel the need to think publicly. At all. What I do feel the need to do is be myself and do the things I want to do. And I don't want to blog anymore. At least, not for awhile.

    I'm not quitting being a blogger. I'll be a blogger for as long as the Internet is a thing. This wasn't a phase that I went through, and now I'm growing up. I'm still passionate about blogging as a way to teach and to entertain. If anything, not blogging is going to be a phase, albeit a very long one.

    I just can't do it any longer.

    Before I go, I want to show you guys two pictures.

The penguin says "Wenk". My friend Mark drew it awhile ago, and I don't have the heart to erase it. 

    I have this whiteboard in my room. I got it because I have an insanely hard time remembering my responsibilities, so I thought that if I wrote stuff down the night before, I'd know what I have to do the next day.

    Well, I usually walk by it in the morning without ever even glancing at it, so that idea was a flop. But on the rare occasion that I do look at it, that word is always up there. 

    "BLOG". It's a constant reminder that if I can't think of anything else to do, I can always hop on my computer and slave away at the keyboard, telling myself, "This time, people are REALLY gonna like my post, and they'll share it and I'll get lots of comments and ideas for new posts and it'll start some great discussions and I'll get lots of positive feedback and yeah! Blogging!" 

    Well, as of right now, that reminder is gone. I don't have it staring at me all the time, telling me that if I don't hop on my computer and slave away at the keyboard, I'll be disappointing the few people that do really care about my blog, and I'll be disappointing myself for not being a writer like I always wanted.

    I'm not being pulled towards it any more, so I decided to cut the last tethers. One more remains. Once I hit "Publish", I'm going to cut this blog from my Favorites tab on my browser, so I don't see it all the time. 

    Don't worry, I'll never delete this blog. Every artist goes back to stare at their finest pieces now and then. 

    Wait, I said I have two pictures for you, didn't I? Right. Here's the other one. 

    

    

     I've always been terrible at ending things. What do I write here that is clever and apt and summarizes all this stuff??????!!!!!?!???!?!? 

    Do I quote somebody famous? Or do I reference a previous post that was fairly popular? Or do I say something silly, like, "That's all, folks!"? Sometimes people wrap up really heavy and important things by just saying, "Fin." Short and to the point, ya' know?

    

    What if this is the wrong decision? What if I'm overreacting because of all the emotions I'm experiencing right now, and all the changes I'm trying to make in my life, and I hit "Publish" and immediately feel the urge to keep blogging, and I post something else, and I look like an overly emotional idiot?

    I'm a very hesitant person, but I've almost never been this sure of anything. It's time to move onward and upward. 

    Hey, that's a pretty good end right there!

    Wait! Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait...wait. 

    I had something else. Dang. 

    Oh well. 

fin.

    

 

Never Stop Fighting

Never Stop Fighting...

for the loved ones you miss
and the memories you've made
when there seems to be no end in sight...
Never Stop Fighting

when your dreams seem to big
for the life that you have
and you just know that there's no point in trying...
Never Stop Fighting

at the end of the day
when you just want to give up
and take the easy way out...
Never Stop Fighting

after all is said and done
and you have nothing to show for your work
and the rage is about to consume you...
Never Stop Fighting

when emotions are things of the past
you feel no joy, pain, sadness, or hope
and your prayers seem to fall on deaf ears...
Never Stop Fighting

when they tell you all sorts of lies
your not fast enough, pretty enough, smart enough
and you feel deep down that they may be right...
Never Stop Fighting

if for no other reason
than to spit in the face of the devil
and to deprive him of satisfaction...
Never Stop Fighting

for the ones that Fight for you
day in and day out
and who love you more than you'll ever know...
Never Stop Fighting

why should you care?
because there's so much beauty out there
and you'll miss so much unless you...
Never Stop Fighting

the world is your oyster
the world awaits your resilient will
the world will only meet its full potential if you...
Never Stop Fighting

Never Stop Fighting depression
Never Stop Fighting anger
Never Stop Fighting injustice
Never Stop Fighting all the fatigue life brings

when the forces of darkness try to crush you
you bring the Fight to them
and stand with those who tell you to...
Never Stop Fighting

Fight tooth and nail
Fight until it hurts
Fight because you want to be Free

Free from depression
Free from anger
Free from injustice
Free from all the fatigue life brings

for all peoples fight to be Free
Freedom from whatever shackles hold us back
from out true potential

when we're Free we can Fight
and when we Fight we'll be Free
so to truly enjoy all of life's Freedoms you must...
Never Stop Fighting

***

"Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Luke 10:19

"Never stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming." Tom Hiddleston 

"Make it stop, Let this end, This life chose me, I'm not lost in sin, But proud I stand of who I am, I plan to go on living." Make it Stop (September's Children), by Rise Against

"To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle your ever going to fight. Never stop fighting." E. E. Cummings

    Dedicated to all those who feel depressed, anxious, lost, angry (righteously or otherwise), unworthy, unloved, abused, broken, or abandoned. God loves you and so do I. Never Stop Fighting.