The List

I wrote The List last night. I wrote it before I left work so I would know what exactly I had to do when I got to work this morning. I wrote it knowing I had a full day yesterday and the rest of the week promises to be the same. I wrote it so I could be focused when I got to my desk this morning. I wrote it. Now I want to throw it away. I honestly don't care about the list. I don't care about the trivialize of my job to a check-off list. I don't like that all of what I do can be put onto a yellow legal pad and then all the sudden, the list is scratched off and I'm supposed to feel some sort of sense of accomplishment...

...but what have I accomplished? My little brother, Cameron, gets his black belt in Karate on April 30th. That's right. 4 days after he turns 13, he will be an official 1st degree black belt. He's about my height (5'5"ish), weighs about 80 pounds, probably...if that... and could kick your butt if he had to. I'm impressed, I'll admit it. I look back at what I had really accomplished by 13...uh, I had a pretty serious obsession with New Kids on the Block, I had a poem published in one of those silly anthologies...I made the cheerleading squad for basketball with 2 broken fingers and my hand in a cast...I learned that I hated cheerleading...I survived most of 7th grade, the year that will officially go down in history as being the worst year ever...I played the flute okay...I had a one-year-old little brother who was the coolest kid in the world already...yeah, I think Cameron is way ahead of me already. Karate, he's musically gifted, he's so much smarter than I ever was...he's awesome and I love him...

...and a completely different thought. I feel so connected and disconnected to Him at the same time. I feel like everyone else in the world has so much more faith than I...I feel like I fail God so many times and I don't understand why He looks at me with such love. I don't understand His love and I don't understand His plan for me. I don't know what He wants me to accomplish in my life, but I have a feeling it's something much bigger than could ever be written down on a yellow legal pad and then summarily checked off...I just pray that the feelings I have right now, as raw and emotional as they are, never leave. I never want to hear excerpts from an interview on the radio and realize that the man they're interviewing has so much more faith and is so much more willing to do anything for it than I do...I want to be changed and remain changed...and then maybe my life will be an accomplishment.