300

this is my 300th post. nothing i would write can really match the epic of that number. so i'll write some general drivel to leave this behind us all.

it smells like spring in manhattan today. warm and windy. for some reason the change of seasons has been making me look back to that season of the last couple years. spring in manhattan is always interesting. though i know it's only february, so this is only an illusion like my memories. next week it will be 15 degrees again i'm sure.

for some reason the weather today also has me thinking about greece--even though i was there in the fall. perhaps it's also because of this blunder, where i couldn't even recognize a place i'd been (#10). i was also looking at one of my pictures from santorini and thinking about how i sincerely doubt that i will ever make it back there--or at least not for many many years.

i started this blog all 300 posts ago on the eve of my time abroad--and my life hasn't been the same since. not because of this blog silly--i know that's what you were thinking because your life has been the same since this blog, am i right? am i right?

i've been thinking a lot about loyalty lately. it's one of my core values--and i know it came from experiences of separation when i was younger. i think the positive side of that effect is loyalty--but also a lot of what i consider "loyalty" is really just the hatred of loss and separation. the difference is in that it is about me. loyalty is devotion to connection and closeness to a person for the sake of the other. and maybe for the sake of the relationship as its own thing. but it is not a virtue when it is just a form of protection for yourself from feeling loss. i realize that when i am hurt by the separation from the past as i am by the separation from people and relationships.

in fact i've seen loyalty just as much operate as a form of control in my life. though of course then it isn't true loyalty, but rather a fight against separation for my own sake as opposed to a fight for someone else. not all of my loyalty is mixed up in this of course, or at least i'd like to think i'm not that selfish. but they can really get mixed together--loyalty and control.

you can't control the passing of time and the memories backing further away. watching them move back can sometimes give you the illusion that you are moving forward though. it's more than that for me right now. i am learning. i don't want to try and control my life. and somehow i'm going to have to learn to deal with the separation that is inevitable. i don't want to be resigned to what isn't though. i think that's part of my vocation--learning how to overcome much of the unnecessary separation that we create through our own fear, independence, and selfishness. and doing it free from any sort of control.

ok so i guess i got into a little more there than i intended. that verse about forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead comes to mind. and i suppose that's probably pretty good advice.