He's a few borsch short of a borsch platter...

It's been over a month since anyone posted on this blog...so I figured I would take a few minutes and change that.

Right now it's Sat. and I have some bags packed and my guitar here at my office. Actually, I have all of my belongings packed. Last night I moved out of my first Kievian "kvartera" and into a spare room at a friends apt. I am now somewhat homeless as I head to the black sea for 10 days of vacation.

It's a wierd feeling. But I kinda love it. I'm not settled in my circumstances. I don't have a home to come back too...but I still feel settled nonetheless.

I am tired. Not like I wanna go to sleep, but just worn out in general. I can't wait to go down to the sea and just read, play guitar, and spend time with God. All this previous week, I was looking intensely for a new place to live. In the end, nothing came through and it was quite frustrating. Now all I really want to do is put some words to some new songs I have been writing. And write new songs.

I am loving the feeling of being a drifter... I have a peace about only taking a backpack's worth of clothes, a bag of books, and my guitar for the 10 day excursion. Here I come, you rickety, smelly, but somewhat charming overnight train to Crimea. I feel free. Free not to be busy. Free to wear the same clothes over and over again for as long as I want. Ohh sweet Jesus, this is going to be good! Thanks so much...

I don't know how much I have mentioned this before, but I'll say it now for posterity. I really LOVE it here in Kiev. It just feels right. I feel like I am fulfilling my purpose. I like the city, as crappy as it can be sometimes. I love the people. The women are beautiful, smart, AND funny. I feel important. There are many opportunities at my fingertips...opportunities to learn, to engage, to encourage, to work, to push through. I don't know. I just feel great. I know the wonderful weather has something to do with it...but there is definitely more behind what I can see and feel. It's just right for me to be here now.

There, I wrote it down. Now I can look back at this entry when things get really hard and remember how niave I was :-) That's partly why I don't like to write on here so much. I don't want to say great things and then completely contradict myself a week later. But I'll just let my emotions roll on like the continual waves that push themselves onto the crimean shore.

So yeah, I was just pretty honest. I don't like to be so honest on the internet. I like to tell people how good things are going, even if they aren't. But right now, I am not even kinda lying. This is honestly how I feel right here, right now. "So take that, Jared's misconstrued conceptions...You've just been honest with all the blorg readers."

Scary.

Anyway, this morning as I was packing, I just made myself a pair of cutoff shorts from my favorite pair of Banana Republic khakis...or kakies…or chachis…or however the crap you spell it. They were my favorite…EVER! They got ripped in the winter and I was very sad. Seriously, very sad. I have never found another pair that fits like they do…did. I've kept them in memoriam in my closet for months, not willing to take the plunge of commitment that scissors require.

Today was different. Screw the fact that I have never cut a straight line since kindergarten...it no longer
mattered. This morning, sitting in a strange room on the edge of my air mattress with all that I own in boxes in bags beside me, I took...the...plunge. Each swipe in a slightly different direction than the last. At first I cut them too long, so I got this very Mediterranean "capri" look. Then I took off my shorts that I was wearing and used them as a pattern for length. This helped. I then took the several swaths of pant that were left over and threw them in the garbage. And thus my favorite pants were no more. But now, at least, I'm left with something a little more useful...SHORTS!

This stupid little anecdote is actually very symbolic for me. I am getting to the place where I no longer care about keeping things exactly as they have been in the past. Things change. Pants get ripped. Parents get divorced. I can't help it, but I can help how I deal with it.

I am really gonna enjoy wearing these...even though I suck at scissors and each legs is crooked by itself and crooked compared to the other. Perhaps the natural fraying will help hide some of the defects...uhhhhh…yeah….perhaps.

So here's to makeshift shorts and learning to move on in the grace of God...

I pretty much love you all the same, in not so slightly different ways. But really I love God the most. Don't be offended...He loves YOU the most! Please pray that I would find Jesus on the beach and that He would love me back into well being. See ya' after a couple of weeks!


P.S.- The pictures on this blog have nothing really to do with what I wrote, but Simeon really wanted some pictures of some of the women that I have been hanging out with. So what do you think? I'll tell you one thing for sure, they are smarter than you. Most of these girls speak at least 3 languages. I love smart women...