End of an Era

5/13/2010

The Countdown to change is flashing by. Are you ready, Matthew?

For nearly all my life, I have lived in the same town. From bouncing between new schools and churches in the area, to my first and current job at United Artist movie theatre in Roseville for five years (with a brief intermission at Safeway in Granite Bay), this is pretty much all I know. This has been my world. But this was not where it all began for me. 

I was born in the City of Angels, where much of my extended family lives, but I was moved before I can even remember to the Sacramento Area, and this is where I have dwelt since. I have been a part of many things throughout my life living here, but nearly every year I visited LA, I always felt that was where my family was. And from a simple moment of watching an awe inspiring movie in 4th grade, I have dreamed of a future...a career with Movies. Since then, I've felt my heart calling me back to the City of Angeles.

I must admit, I have been delusional and starry-eyed, fantasizing and daydreaming of things that I knew were not real. I haven’t been exceptionally good at many things in my life, but I have always been the master of imagination. There has been nowhere I couldn’t go…in my mind. And in the back of my head, there was always the faint whisper of reality telling me they were all fake, all lies, but I pushed them aside year after year, telling myself I’d be purposefully oblivious for just another year. And in truth, even now, I can not definitively say the validity of that thought process.

But in the last couple of years in college, as I’ve struggled with my sins and flaws, slowly I have dedicated myself to something more then just my dream. I hesitated for so long to commit, not because I didn’t believe in Him, but I didn’t believe in me. I didn’t believe he could work in me. I partially still don’t. But I’ve come to see myself do things I thought I’d never do before… Simple things that I thought I’d never have the stomach to confront.

But any good in me isn’t even me. Thank God…

As much as I hate my mistakes, as much as I regret some of the things I have done, I know that every single choice, good or bad, has brought me here…. Which is exactly where God wants me. My regrets and past and dreams have weighed me down, because I wouldn’t let them go.

I don’t even know when it happened, but suddenly, in a moment, I passionately and painstakingly was willing to sacrifice everything I had in me (which wasn’t/isn’t much), even my dream (which meant more to me than nearly anything in my whole life), for Christ. I prayed earnestly that He’d guide me, that He’d kill my dreams for my future if it wasn’t what he wanted for me. And the trials grew harder, and more was put on risk as that future began to morph from the abstract to the potential possible. And I felt weaker and weaker with the weight, and I screamed in my head for the doors to be smashed in my face. And then…three days later, the door opened.

I still have my doubts, and even since that day, I haven’t allowed myself to be over come with excitement by this dream. I haven’t allowed the resolving potential fact to sink in. And even now, a few weeks away, with it all becoming nearly concrete, I still haven’t allowed the emotions to storm in fully. Every time before, every time I almost moved down to LA in the last couple of years, the door always shifted, and I was always afraid, clutching fast to the world I knew, not ready to let go. And now, my feet and mind are loose, and I might just fall and be dropped into a new place: CSU Northridge.

But this is it. Even if my specific expectations for the future do not come true, I am (unless the door closes at the last minute) moving to the City of Angeles. I am not deluded anymore, and I’m also not intentionally oblivious and naïve anymore. I know that the City of Angeles isn’t the Realm of the Heavenly. In fact, the irony is I’m moving into the Heart of Darkness. I do not deny that I am probably not ready for any of this, but I know I’m Never Alone. And I know no matter how much I fail and fall, God squeezes good out of the worst of us. So here goes nothing… here goes everything. I risk all I have, in the only way I know. I’m following the signs.

So, I am leaving Nor Cal. On May 21^st, I depart for a week, and then I’ll be back here from the 31^st through June 6^th, and then, God-willed, I move to So Cal. I’m leaving behind everything I’ve ever known. So wish me not goodbye, just see you later.

Thank you all that have read this far for caring so much for me. Every moment, every experience that I’ve had with you will propel me forward.

Hopefully, I’m falling up.