on wanting and doing and pretending not to know the difference

When I was a teenager there was a boy for whom I was over the moon.

I knew it. My friends knew it. My sister-in-law had already even named our first child, so I guess you could say my family knew it too.

And though going to church was still about all the good things church was about, it was also about seeing him. Only in my mind ‘him’ was definitely italicized. And capitalized. And bolded. So it looked more like HIM. And then I probably sighed. And because I had read so many 19 century novels in which couples would take a turn together or perhaps even sit together in the parlor during the waning hours of the evening, I was tempted to swoon. But because I live in the 21st century, I don’t even really know how to do that .

I mean, I could faint, I guess. But the closest I’ve ever really gotten to doing that was when I was laying out in the sun for too long.  Or rather after, when I stood up and it was like I had accidentally smashed a lightbulb with my sudden movement, only the lightbulb was the sun, it was suddenly that dark.

But I grabbed onto something and waited for the light to come back on again and never did go down.

So there you go, I still haven’t fainted and I am still way behind those 19 century romantics who swooned. I suppose I could impress them with my use of a microwave, but still, how many love stories involve microwaves?

That’s what I thought.

But this boy and church.

One time when church hadn’t quite started yet and I was busy talking to my particular group of friends, I saw him (HIM) walk in. I immediately told my friends that I was going to go say hello to some other people and left the group. And where did I go? Right to that boy, to spend the entirety of my free time talking to him.

Now my friend Christine, she saw the whole thing and couldn’t resist teasing me about it later. Oh, did you enjoy saying hi to all those other people? she asked with a smile. It’s funny, though, she commented, I really only saw you talking to one other person. And we laughed, because it was true and because it was cute.

But I say all this because sometimes we don’t really even know the content of our heart until we look and see what we’ve done. I don’t think it was wrong that I said something vague about being friendly to others and then went and talked to the boy that I liked. I think that is simply part of surviving in this society. It’d be strange to reveal the depths of your heart in the midst of a lighthearted social group, even in church. We often have to cloak ourselves in ambiguity, sometimes even just for self-preservation. And that’s okay, I think.

But life begs for us to know what’s in our hearts, right?

And during this time of year everybody is busy talking about what we’re going to do better, starting January 1st.

And to do that I think it’s important to gauge what we’ve already done. We can all say the best things, impressing each other with our good intentions; heck, we can even charm ourselves. But to know what’s in your heart takes a good hard look at the things you’ve been doing.

As a teenager, the thing that I really wanted was to get to know this boy better. So despite what I said, I went and did exactly what I wanted to do: I talked to him, cultivating our relationship. And I guess that’s my point. People do what they want to do. What do you want? Look at the things you’ve busied yourself with the most in 2009. If what you’ve done doesn’t match what you say you want to do, then something needs to change because you’re living a life that is at best confusing and at worst dishonest.

I want to live a life that is consistent. A life that is neither boring, confusing, or dishonest; but rather a life that makes for a good story, as Don Miller would say. And what makes for a good protagonist is that they know what they want and overcome obstacles to get it.

And barring you being a super evil person who wants super evil things (or even mildly evil things), then go for it. Go find a way around those obstacles and run towards a finish line. Any finish line. Even if the finish line looks a lot like a stationary bike that you sit on and peddle during Oprah three times a week. Or a writer’s group with deadlines for once. Or a college degree. Or even a conversation with someone for whom you are over the moon. Because let’s say you want your story to involve chasing after kids and health in general, a book with your picture in the section that says meet the author, teaching something that you love for a pretty decent paycheck, or even having those kids to chase after in the first place–chances are any of those outcomes are going to involve the plain old hard work of doing the aforementioned things, right?

It’s silly of me to talk about wanting to make albums and then not venture any further than my living room. In that case, I should start talking about wanting to be a living room designer–or something that involves living rooms, I guess.

So here’s to making silly jokes rather than living silly lives.

Here’s to 2010 being a year that involves the things we spend our time doing actually matching the things we talk about wanting.

Here’s to 2010 being one heck of a story.