Sometimes I think I spend so much time reminiscing on here because I struggle to really remember much that has happened in my life. In recent years, much of my life has buried beneath baseball and boardgame stuff and work. At least that’s what I tell myself. And then I sit down to write one of these posts, and I try to remember something important from my life.

But the stories are hard to unearth.

Why? Why is that?

Is that really the sum and depth of my existence- a short blurry smear on the timeline of history and existence? Isn’t there much more beneath what my conscious self allows me to see?

One would think.

And them I’m persuaded that perhaps I am just dull, like a knife with no edge, or a pepper with no zip. Simple. Fundamental.

What happened to all of those years spent in schools? Playing on the playground and sitting in circles in class in elementary school? Swimming in angst and insecurity and discovery as I made my way through middle school, a growing, gangly, thickly-glassed pimply-faced goof of a quiet kid, recessive and reticent and retreating. And the high school guy who morphed in the middle years, from inadequate to in everything.

Four years in college, at UNM, a young adult, involved at the Baptist Student Union, navigating classes and and crushes and cashflow and career questions.

Three years in seminary in the Bay Area in California, full of new sights and tastes and scenery and cultures and studies, a place so unlike my desert heritage, and full of greenery and moisture and beauty and busyness.

Two more years of grad school, a decade later, back in Albuquerque, in an effort to kickstart my life, sitting weekend by weekend with the same people in the big classroom completing MBA course after MBA course, again, grabbing for that paper.

And that is school.

Years and years of school.

And I question what I remember, and I question what I actually know.

I remember specific moments of life in Chicago pretty frequently, because ethos years were the most tumultuous in my life- walking downtown in the throng under the tall buildings, in the apartment on the umpteenth floor with Michelle, looking out at Lake Shore Drive pushing north up the coast of Lake Michigan, the dirty carpets at work at Enteract taking tech support phone calls, lights and heights and wind and walking.

I remember jogging a thousand laps around the Loop around the Academy in the Northeast Heights in Albuquerque. Hours and miles, completed at different times of the day, in different temperatures.

Too many hours staring at screens. TV screens. Computer displays. Laptop screens. Phone screens. Screens and screens and screens.

Favorite books bought and kept over the years, that I go back to over and over.

Hours spent reading and studying the Bible- in days when I was full of faith, and in days when it was nearly all gone.

Stewing on mistakes and failures, and fears. Hours.

Family holiday meals.

Comings and goings.

Being failed by others- and failing others along the way.

Family, family, family.

I reckon more will be revealed for me in time.