It is the last day of the year. Happy Birthday Christi!
And it is nearly the last day of the century.
Emily and I never went to a movie on Monday. She left a message here on Wednesday night saying she had been in Atlanta for the past two days and now she is back in Tallahassee. I flew down here from Virginia to see her and she goes to Atlanta, yet she writes letters to me saying, “In a perfect world, I could smell the salt of your skin.”
It doesn’t make any sense. I want our story to be over.
So 1999 will begin soon. I am going to spend the final night of this year at Brownsville Assembly of God.
Last night mom and I went to visit a local church and we ended up at Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Pace, FL. There I met the oldest resident of Santa Rosa county. She is 105 years old.
I often think that because I take the time to write my thoughts down on these blank pages that I’ve figured life out. But then I look into the eyes of someone born in the 1890s and realize I don’t know anything. She was all there too. She had the clearest mind. Oh God, may I get there some day.
I’ve found myself dreaming of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. It has happened again. Another home has come. I long for it now more than my mountains.
Oh Lord, don’t ever let me go.
I spent the first days of this year in Siler City and Sanford, then months in Banner Elk where I spent time with Sarah who decided to let me go before I would have to let her go. I played Billy Bibbit on stage, spent a week in Kentucky, a weekend in Tampa, and thousand of moments with the greatest humans on the earth: Vince, Allen, Dan, Curtis, Tracey, Abigail, Ann-Marie, Josh, Ashley, Justin, Jessica, Lindy, Jeni and many more. Jenny got married. I graduated. And I spent a month driving back and forth to Winston-Salem trying to hold onto a girl I knew was fading away. I raised some money, flew to Africa, and returned to a brand new world of Christin, Sterling, and Kimberly; a world I now greatly miss.
I saw God move in South Africa, but as I grow older, I realize God is moving everywhere.
In addition to my one-act in the early months of the year, I also directed a beautiful Christmas show at Parkway Temple. Regent allowed me to work on many film projects, and of course there was my job at the bookstore. I visited Lynchburg, and now I am here in Milton, FL, where I rode with mom to New Orleans and saw the coast line in between.
I am 22-years-old.
The days are not getting any easier.
The days are not getting any longer.
All I can do is grab the hand of Jesus on one side of me, grab the hand of a good friend on the other side, and hope the rock on which we stand will remain.
The first days of 1999 will begin as the last days of 1998 are ending. I’ll be attending the famous Brownsville Revival.
I fly out on the fourth and will land in the arms of Christin, for she is picking me up from the airport.
If all goes well, I hope to spend most of my days in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake during the final months of the century, for I have a very acute feeling that I won’t be there very long.
Heaven will be nice.
There are no goodbyes there.
20yearsagoblog 