Chapter One

Chapter I

The Linebacker and the Truths

“I just don’t quite understand the whole concept behind the one” he said holding his fork between the chubby, baby-like, fingers of his right hand. We were eating Chinese (my favorite food in the world) and he was sitting across from me. He was Tanner, although he now preferred to be called Rock. Apparently that was the name he was born with, but was instead alternatively called Tanner by his family, because everyone else in the family had “T” names. This bit of information had managed to become unknown to me in the whole four years of school that I attended with him.  He was also the only one in his family that was big. I mean he was a big kid back when I went to school with him (before I got kicked out), but I figured he would have grown out of it, or at least do what happen to me, and grow into his weight, but he didn’t. He was like an NFL linebacker. Well, minus the height. He was only about six foot. He had dark, messy blonde hair that stuck up in the back. His two glossy eyes sunk deep into his chubby, also baby-like face, which always seem to keep a smile on it. He had a scabbed fever blister. It looked pretty bad and I wondered where it came from. He didn’t dress exceptionally “well.” Of course when you’re that big you can’t exactly buy normal clothes. You have to buy whatever is big enough. I only know this because I use to be pretty big myself. He wore kaki cargo shorts and a t-shirt. I replied.

“Ok …well what do you not understand?” I said taking a bite of my sweet and sour chicken. “Well, like how do you know that person is the one? What makes you sure?” he said. I wanted to tell him “you just know” or “it just feels right” or one of those carnal/worldly answers, but that wasn’t the right answer. First of all “you just know” is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and “it just feels right” is also completely ridiculous. A lot of things in life feel like they might be right, but it doesn’t actually make them right. Feelings are good things, but can easily become bad things. Feelings are cheap and can change in a second. Feelings are merely the second level of thoughts and thoughts can be so trivial and completely unreasonable that you find yourself lost in your own head, and if you get lost in your own head, well than, you’ve got a bigger problem than feelings.

So I told him the right answer. I said “only God can tell you that. You need to pray and ask God what’s up with this girl. If she’s the one start fixing yourself, start making you better, than pursue her in a meaningful and pure friendship. Once you have her friendship you will have the foundation for a blessed and sanctified relationship in God, and that, my friend, is the only relationship worth having. That is the relationship you will want and need for your life.” God was truly speaking through me.  “Alright, sounds good” he said. He had a look of utter disbelief on his face, disbelief that I would have such wise nuggets of wisdom for him. I can’t blame him. I should have had that look on my face too.

His reasoning was the same as mine: We both knew how I was as a kid. I was obnoxious and loud. Pretty much everyone was annoyed by my lack of filter or even care to have a filter. I was completely Shiftless (lazy) and fat. I ate everything and was really weird. My grooming habits were definitely not wonderful. I wore whatever clothes I wanted too and didn’t match at all. My haircut was always short and cropped and I wore big goofy glasses that made my already huge eyes bulge even more. I was bigger than everyone and yet I was so passive it was ridiculous. The kicker is I was very smart. So on top of all my abnormalities I would talk with an elevated demeanor, which made the other kids feel as if I was trying to make them feel stupid. I wasn’t. I talked about things that no other kid talked about like the musical and lyrical differences between the Beatles’ early and later periods and who was better Elton John or Billy Joel. These kids had never heard of the Beatles or Elton John, much less knew about their music. Their parents were not intellectual people with Master’s degrees, like mine. They were either rich or had nine kids like Tanner-slash-Rock’s family, in which case you would have to have a substantial amount of money to support all of those kids. Or at least that’s what I thought as a child, going to that school.

It is amazing to me how far I’ve come in only a couple of months. It shouldn’t be because it’s God and the possibilities of God can never be limited, but to my vastly complex, yet somehow, laughably simple in reasoning, human mind it’s unbelievable. We are always amazed when God does something big. We say things like “I was on the verge of death and destruction and God saved me from my evil ways and redeemed my wretched life.” How funny is that? God can never be on the verge of death simply because he can never be on the verge of defeat, and if you have God in your life, really in your life, working through you and in you, you have the power, authority and ability to never be defeated again. By whom, by the devil, Satan, Lucifer, whatever you want to call him, and Christians don’t understand that. We never have to be defeated again.

…And even though I knew this, I couldn’t help but wonder in my, once again, oxymoron of a mind, if the people with me right now would still feel the same way if they knew what I had done. Would Tanner/Rock still respect my words of wisdom if he knew what I had done? Would Tasha, my wonderful, beautiful, amazingly spiritual girlfriend that was sitting beside me, who I was set to marry, still love and cherish me the way she does if she knew what I had done? These were the questions I really needed answered, by an old school mate, at a Chinese restaurant.