A Decade Under The Influence

I turned 20 today.

20.

That's a whole new era for me.

20.

It's something entirely different.

I'm not a teenager anymore. I can't necessarily be called a kid anymore. There's no more teen rebellion. No more... I don't know. I mean, quite honestly, there's no way I'm ever going to stop being a kid. If I can be one thing in my life, I hope I'm always a kid. I think deep at heart I'm like a 5 year old little boy. I say boy because tonight in the midst of a very important and philosophical conversation with Chad, Michael, Stephanie, and Amelia (Sorry, Jenna, you left too early) I definitely started talking about poop.

But a whole second decade of my life is gone. I've lived two decades and I'm not sure what I have to show for it. I don't know if I should be writing this after such a long day now at 4:30 in the morning, but sometimes I wonder what I've contributed to the world.

It's difficult to really believe that though considering it took me 45 minutes to go through all of the Facebook birthday messages, videos, blogs, and I've spent pretty much the last 48+ hours in birthday mode with friends and family, which by the way, I love. Definitely using my birthday to my advantage more often next time. But there were these tiny and large message from people I've touched. Sure they saw my birthday on their Home Page or (for my much closer friends) knew about it anyway, but they still took time out to say something to me. How amazing is that. I'm loved. And I know it.

And despite being told countless times today how well I show my love to others, I feel I don't show it enough. Isn't that weird? Sometimes I feel like I need a complete 180 on how I treat people. I need more lessons on love. And I want to take those lessons. So I'm going to take them from the person who knows best about them--God.

I feel like the past two decades of my life have been influenced by things that they shouldn't have been--boys, money, idleness, procrastination-- to name a few. I want this decade to be marked by Him and the love in the relationships I have and will develop. It's a large commitment, but I've supposedly given my life to Him, so why shouldn't I give Him a decade? I want this to be so filled with Him I can't separate this time in my life from Him.

I've already started doing this. Stephanie and I bought the full works of C.S. Lewis and we're reading them together, going over them together, and beginning to talk about our faith together--something we've never done really. We both want this and I think it was a great first step towards a whole new area to our friendship, one I'm really excited about.

So, that is what I wanted to say. I'm living in a decade under the influence of Him. This post was probably no coherent, but I needed to write it before I went to bed. It needed to be written "today." I shall write another with details on the birthday soon.

But thank you to everyone. You each fill my heart so much, it could burst any moment. Thank you to all the people who are exceptionally poignant in my life, to those on the outskirts, and those who've left it for good. You've all made words, phrases, paragraphs, and chapters in my life.