Unexpected . . .

Today began as a usual today . . . work early in the morning . . . hanging with the Kerri, Riley & Trey all afternoon . . . dinner with family. It was all pretty normal till about 10pm . . . thats when the unexpected started happening . . . .

First I went to see a friend very briefly (basically a whole three minutes) . . . and I am not sure really sure about all that is going on there, but on my way home I took advantage of the car time and made a phone call to an old friend from NY named Christine that I met on this retreat back in 1999. It was really nice to talk with her and from that conversation we decided to set up a time to talk and pray with each other once a week . . . I will most certainly look forward to those times.

But it was the next conversation that will have my head spinning (in a good way) for quite some time. I called up the Jackson's because I had not heard from them in about three weeks and wondered how they were doing. And in the almost seven years that I have known them, this will go down as the best conversation I have had with them, particulary Jen, thus far. There were two points of the conversation that drew a completely silent response. I am going to describe them out of order since the first one was far more significant.

The second stunning revelation of the evening was that the Jackson's have read my blog. Not large portions of it, but mainly the stuff that pertained to them . . . the entries that I wrote before, during and after Central City. I will admit I exclaimed quite a few "Holy Crap's!" & "Oh My Gosh's" . . . but in the end it did not really matter. Though they read some things that were initially very hurtful to them, it did not matter . . . in fact it made them all that more determined not to lose my friendship from their life.

I will introduce the first stunning relevation by explaing that a lot has changed in the way I view the Jackson's since I went to visit them in November. When I left there, I really thought that door was closing in my life (and as it turns out, they thought they were losing me too) and I came home very much prepared to move on (not to devalue their presence in my life, but to simple move forward in this journey, without them). But they were determined not lose me (which I only know as their motivation after last night's conversation) and so Jen called me two weeks after the visit. And then she called a week after that. And the next week after that. Each time she would call me, it was not some complicated and deep conversation, it was just talking about life. Then the holidays came and went, things were busy and so I had not heard from anyone in the Jackson Family for over three weeks, so I decided to call (it needs to be said that if she had not started calling in the beginning this never would have happened, I would have let closure be closure and not really put any effort into maintaining the relationship). Anyway I have written this whole long introduction to simply say that Jen flat out read me like a book. But she did not do it so that she could prove that she knew something about my life, she did it by way of apology.

I was orginally going to go into the whole conversation and why it was so significant, but I think it I will leave at that for the the first time (in a really long time) I felt as though she truly and genuinly understood me. And that absolutely floored me.

It is as if the relationship has started over . . . in a very new and honest way. Something change in or for me, that made me approach and view this relationship very differently. It is really almost as if a clean slate has been started (built on the things that were great about our relationship in the past, leaving out all my misperceptions and fears and such forth.

I know it seems like I got a lot more vague as the entry went on, but I don't care so much. I feel as though I said what I needed to say, and if you would like to more, you can just ask.

When I went out last night and quickly returned home, I thought it was a little bit of waste that I had stayed up so late past my bed time, but it turned out to be well worth it . . . more than I can explain.