Hello, again. Thank you to all of you who read my first blog. It’s kind of scary putting my life out there for people to see, but I can already feel myself getting better and already have the next few entries laid out in this giant head of mine. A little bit of housekeeping to start off though, comments are always welcome and you can do them anonymously if you don’t want me knowing it was you who commented. Likes and comments on Facebook are also more than welcome as well. Also, to the right and below the entries are some ads that Google put on my page. If you wouldn’t mind clicking on them I would appreciate it. I make a few cents off of each click and you don’t have to worry about spam or virus’ since they are legit and from the big giant Google.
I’d like to take a bit of time today to give all of you some insight into what makes me tick when it comes to our subject of love and heartache. As I sit here and think about my almost 33 years of life it is helping me put together what it is that makes me, me. Think of life as a big color by number picture without the numbers. You have the colors, you have the lines, and you know what it looks like when you are done. The only problem is you don’t know where the colors go in the lines until you look back and really think about how each piece of the picture came to be there in the first place. Once you start identifying a few things the parts around it or that are related to it come into focus and are easier to fill in. All of you can look at me and see the picture that is me, but it’s not the whole picture. So throughout this I will start filling in the sketch so that not only you have a better idea of what make me who I am, but so that I can too. Until I know, I can’t move forward.
I am the oldest of five kids and have the two best parents anyone could ask for. Growing up (and still to this day) my parents provided a loving environment for us kids to grow up in. The more people I meet in my travels and daily life, the more I understand that I am really fortunate in that respect. Not everyone can say that they had that either growing up or now that they are “grown-ups” and on their own. For most of my life my dad, Bill, was a Baptist Pastor and now he works for Radio Bible Class. He’s written a few books and also writes articles for Our Daily Bread as well as speaks to Pastor’s Conferences and Bible Conferences around the world. I’m sure if they held one in Antarctica he’d be doing one there and then he’d have all seven continents crossed off his places to visit list. My mom, Marlene, has been and still is a professional mom. No offense to the guys on Deadliest Catch, but I think being a mom is a much more difficult and harrowing profession than those guys have out on the Bering Sea catching crab. Both of my parents have been supportive of us and have loved us regardless of whether or not we may or may not be making a mistake in our decision making. Never once did I feel like I was being pressured to impress my parents or to make them proud of me. That little tidbit you will be seeing again.
Growing up as an oldest child is tough. Unless you are one, you don’t really know what it’s like. Some people say that as the oldest you are the one your parents experiment on and then the younger siblings get the benefit of your trial and error. Also, as the oldest your younger siblings are looking up to you and looking to learn from your example. So there is a lot of pressure that is inherent in the job. Add onto that that my dad was a Pastor. As a Pastor’s kid, the spotlight is always on you. You have to behave when you are out in public and watch what you do, because you don’t want anyone to look at you and think less of your parents. Now none of this pressure was never directly placed on me by anyone. Like I said before, my parents never put that pressure on me and neither did my siblings. It was just there. A lot of my pressure to be the best has also been self-imposed. I have always wanted to be the best at everything I have done. Whether it be at a video game, baseball, golf or even a spelling test, I had to be better because I wasn’t satisfied with my own performance. My mom likes to still joke with me that I used to come home in tears when I would get a spelling word wrong on a quiz in 1st Grade. Never did they ever express to me that I wasn’t good enough or told me I needed to be better. I have always just had a self-confidence issue and feelings of self-doubt. I still struggle with this in my day to day life in my work, as a dad, and also when I’m in a relationship I always wonder if I am good enough for her.
Since this whole experiment is about my ongoing struggle with love and heartache, let’s go back to what I will call “The Wonder Years.” When I was 12 my family moved from Southern California to West Michigan. Of course at 12 I was going starting to go through changes of my own with puberty and such, which made it all the more difficult to move and meet a whole new group of people. I will say though that I did meet a whole bunch of great people and kids as soon as I got there. I came in there as the new kid coming from a church without a whole lot of kids my age into a church with a whole bunch of kids my age. I thought it was great. There were some cool guys and some very pretty girls…think, really really pretty girls. To say that I was awkward would be an understatement. I was smaller than most and had big thick glasses that made me feel very much like Steve Urkel. All Steve wanted was for the girl of his dreams to like him and he would do whatever he could to get her to. For me, it wasn’t trying to get one girl to like me. It was to get everyone to like me. I used to try so hard just to be noticed and liked by everybody that I would be a different person for every person I was around. Sometimes I would make fun of myself or intentionally fall down in order to get people to notice and laugh at me. I figured it was better for them to laugh at me than it was for me to be ignored and just blend in and not be noticed.
Once I got to high school I figured out that I had something that I could offer to gain favor with the other kids in class. Particularly, I was good at math. I always have had a knack for numbers and they just seem to make sense to me. I can look at a spreadsheet full of data and it just makes sense to me. Kind of like Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind” or the operators looking at the cascading lines of green code in “The Matrix.” While I was in high school I would help people, (okay in all honesty, it was the cute girls in class) with their homework during class. They seemed to appreciate the help, or the fact they didn’t have to do it on their own, and I appreciated the attention that I got from them. What I didn’t realize then but I know now was that it wasn’t getting me any closer to my goal of getting the girl, whoever she may be. I think the moment when that really hit me was in my Senior year. At the beginning of the school year my parents let me get contact lenses. I remember going on a Monday to get them fitted and see if they would work. It was really weird having something in my eyeball and it was hard for me to get them in there. On a side-note, I still get weirded out when it comes to stuff with eyes. Whether it be something in a movie, on tv, or in person, when it deals with eyes I get all weirded out. Even though I was weirded out by it, I was determined to make them work because I felt like my big thick Urkel glasses were holding me back and keeping the girls from really noticing me. That Friday night was a one of the first home Football games for the Holland Dutch. Can’t remember who we were playing or if we won but I remember something that happened at half-time. You see, after school that day my parents took me to go and pick up my first real set of contact lenses. I couldn’t wait to go to the game that night and actually be able to see and also be seen without my glasses. Also, I went to the game alone because most of my buddies were on the team so it’s not like I could go with them. Anyway, I got to the stadium and found my seat. I sat up in the top row about the 35 yard line on the left hand side. (How do I remember that and not who we played I’ll never know. Must be my genetic knack for useless knowledge.) Sitting right in front of me were two girls from one of my classes. These two were both a couple of the pretty girls in class and for the last couple of years we had shared the same Math class and I had done my usual deal and helped them when they needed it. I guess you’d say we were friends. I’m sure you must be wondering now why I’m telling you this, but hang in there, I’m getting the rest of the story. All throughout the first half of the game I noticed the girls looking back every once in a while and then would whisper to themselves. I didn’t say anything to them though because I’m what you would call shy (chicken actually), but I noticed that they definitely knew I was there. At some point during half-time the both turned around and looked at me, but instead of turning back around one of them finally said, “Matt?” and I replied that it was me. “Where are your glasses, did you get contacts?” I said, “Yup, picked them up after school today.” At that point there was a pause and she said “Wow, you’re cute now!” At that moment I got and awesome compliment, but also felt like I got slapped in the face at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, it was awesome having one of the prettiest girls in school tell me that I was cute….that doesn’t ever get old. I still like it when the pretty girls tell me I’m cute or attractive, who doesn’t. What stuck with me was the “..Now!” My glasses had kept them from seeing me, but that wasn’t all. What they didn’t seem to get was that it was still me, whether I had glasses or not. Not having glasses didn’t change who I was, it just made me more attractive physically. What I wanted though deep down was for them to like me for me, not for how I looked. That is why it was a big slap in the face at the same time as being a huge compliment and ego booster.
Now, I know that some of the reason for that is it was high school and that’s how high school kids are. But there are still people outside of high school that are the same way. It could be looks, profession, and lifestyle to name a few that people like to hang their hat on and make a huge priority. What I find matters most is the person inside all of those things. Looks and jobs change over time. But the person on the inside is what truly matters because that more often than not doesn’t change. Fifteen years removed from High School I’m still the same guy that just wants people to notice me and pay some attention to me. Some things have changed though. No longer do I do nice things for people to get them to notice me or like me. I just do it because I like doing nice things for people. Whether it be fixing a computer, making sure flowers are on the kitchen table, opening doors for people at stores, or the simple “Have a nice day” I just do it to because that’s who I am, not because I want something in return. What I hope is that someday, someone will be able look past the extra few pounds I have now, the ever increasing gray hair, that my job may take me away for a while, or that I am a big dork most of the time and see that once you pull back those curtains, that there is a nice guy sitting there who just wants to make people happy and wants to be happy in return.
Well, I didn’t expect this one to be quite this long. I guess I hit my groove, or just started to get to the rambling. I appreciate you hanging with me this long. Let me know what you thought. Good or bad, comments are welcome and don’t forget to click the ads. Don’t worry they won’t make you sign up for anything. Just click the link and once the page has loaded you can close out of it.
Good afternoon, Good Evening, and Good Night.
Matt
