Stuck in a Moment

What is it with life and being trapped? What is it with life and the battle to figure out what matters? What’s next?

These are questions that have been asked of me and questions that I’ve asked myself often over the last few years. And for my part I am sick of hearing them. I spent the better part of my life wondering around aimlessly and I managed to hit it, thank you very much. I also hated it, in spite of what some might say. Being lazy and unmotivated isn’t much fun for a dreamer and a visionary. Yes I just called myself a visionary. It is merely a quote from a friend, so don’t get the wrong idea. And as a visionary and a dreamer, I did what every visionary and dreamer would do…something.

I guess this all started almost 5 years ago when I woke up one day and I knew that there was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to live in Joplin, Missouri any longer than I had to. So, I made a plan to head out west to Colorado. That didn’t work, because I decided that if I was going to move it would be with a purpose. So I found an amazing school in Florida. I flew down, checked it out, and decided to get married instead.

Less than a year after that, I moved to Springfield, Mo…a much more financially and geographically convenient local. There was also a school here that had an audio degree. So, I enrolled and two or three years later…I graduated from college. Not many people thought I would, not many people thought I could…well, I did.

Amidst the craziness of school, I had to find a senior project that I could believe in. My entire purpose for going to school is to come out of it and be able to produce media with a purpose. I’m not talking overly ‘religious’ things, I’m just talking things that are real. Yes I am a Christian, but that doesn’t mean that my films and my songs and my whatever have to be in the same cheese ball-low quality-not even close to real life kind of way that most ‘Christian’ media is associated with. So, I decided to make a documentary about micro-financing and how it is working in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya and a few other places. Didn’t think it would be such a big deal, and I was wrong. Didn’t think I would be directing and editing it, but I did.

I’ve spent almost every waking moment since February of last year thinking about Africa. It is surreal to me that I have been there and back already, and it pains me to think of how long it might take me to get back. I truly miss my friends there.

So, the film is almost finished. It was finished enough for school and a degree, but not quite finished enough for me. And now that that is almost over, and school is over…I’m stuck again. No job, can’t pay the bills, can’t rest, and don’t have much motivation. And for the last two months, I’ve been absolutely burnt out. I could barley get out of bed. I killed myself trying to graduate and somehow I lived through it. And now that the energy and motivation have found me again, I find myself asking those same damn questions… What is it with life and being trapped? What is it with life and the battle to figure out what matters? What’s next?