Or maybe just some of those childish things

I am not quite sure how I got to this point in my life. Where I have become so dependent on myself and dependent on very few people. At times I think that my heart has grown into a stone or some kind of crystal. The exterior is hard but the inside of it is where everything special is. I suppose I started to not wear my heart on sleeve and only really be me around a selective crowd. At times it isn't that noticeable and in fact I don't really care. In the end I got tired of getting hurt and letting myself get hurt. So natural I changed it over time. The pressure of life and what positions I felt like I was in turned me into coal. I got sort of harsh and annoyed. Into some kind of critic. I'm looking at life through my experiences and things that have polished away the things that I just can't carry on with. I suppose I matured and left childish things behind in some way. Although those things, those childish things, might have been better to keep. Or maybe just some of those childish things. I cannot erase what people have done to me or what people have done for me. I also can't erase what life events have done to me or do to me.

I look at the people in my life and I count the people who really know me and respect me and the number begins to decrease from the actual number of people I am friends with. I cannot quite explain why this is so. Some people have taken the time to get to know me and others asked me to take the time to get to know them.

When I search through the sea of people I know I begin to wonder what goes on through their head. I want to know what they have been through that makes them tick. I wonder why I am not like them or they aren't like me. I wonder why I cry at these times and they don't and vice versa.

There are some that say people don't change. I don't think that is true. I think people can change. They have their fondation, their personality temperaments. Their cognition can change to a certain extent and therefore their behaviors change. Life is stagnate and it cannot stop on a dime. Events and situations keep happening that effect people like a ripple effect.

Ever since Spain I have had a hard time being involved with the church. I never felt like I really belonged. My ideas kept being different. Community was different in my eyes. I felt mature by life than most adults there. As the years went on from my freshman year in college to now...I view church different. When I walk in I do not feel welcomed. It feels as though people come to hear a lecture and sing songs. mingle and then leave. the pressure to have community is so great that it feels incredibly fake. I have yet to shake a hand and see Gods face in their eyes. Although I actually did once. In California I shaked the hand of an old woman who greeted me into church. Her wrinkles told me stories of life and frustration. Her eyes told me of love and embrace. I'm not sure why I have lost my hope in church. But what I do know now is that the meanest people I have met have been affiliated with the church. They talked with smooth and suave words but it felt like a bite from a snake.

I have felt more welcomed in a bar then at church. Maybe because people are drinking which is very true. But I have had great conversations in them also. I have met people who have been through hell and actually talk about it. I have met more kind eyes then I have in church. Its weird because when I usually meet kind eyes in a church, the person is older...much older then me.

I have changed in numerous ways. Learned lessons that reach the sun. I've cried for days on end. I have done horrible things. I have tried to be kind and then tried some more. I have told somebody I loved them. I have been hurt many times. I have held the hand of the dying. I have felt love.. genuine love from just an embrace. Though I have not lived. I have not. I have more mountains to climb and sorrows to bare. I have oceans to swim and rivers to wade in. I have couches and blankets and friends to snuggle with still.