rambling

So, I've had a lot of time to think lately.  I know I know, that might be a dangerous thing, me thinking, only really romantic and over dramatized things can come from this.  Oh and probably some tears(just saying). It's just been a really weird couple of weeks for me lately.  I mean really and truly growing up is a hard thing to do.  And I know that people never say that it's going to be easy.  You know you're parents are always saying well wait until you get older, and wait until you have responsibilities and you have to pay bills and all that jazz that parents like to say.  And for me it's something that I always took seriously but when your a person like me that constantly finds himself in Neverland wondering around trying to gasp onto that last bit of innocence it can all be a little overwhelming and seem to almost smack you in the face when that times comes.

I don't know if any of that even sound remotely like a complete thought.  In my head it did but when my fingers get to typing it all seems like it could just be the ravings of a mad man.  It has been weird to me lately though.  I mean the closer I come to leaving the more I have to deal with the fact that I actually am leaving.  Like this place that I've called home for my entire life will no longer be my home, it's a scary fucking thought.  It's also kind of exhilarating.

It's crazy to think about.  I mean I'm sitting here and I'm just thinking about all the things that have lead me up to this point good and bad.  I start to think what my life would be had I done things just a little bit differently.  I don't know really, I'm sure everybody thinks like this ever now and again.  I mean it seems to be the same old story.  One day you're 18 years old thinking about the future and what all is in front of you.  And then before you even know it yesterday turns into today, today turns into tomorrow, and then tomorrow turns into the rest of your life without you even realizing what is happening.  

I really don't know why I'm even writing any of this.  I think it's because I've changed so much over the past 10 years and it seemed like I didn't even realize just how much I've changed until recently.  I mean i've kind of spent that last two days at home sleeping in some state of depression.  But I started thinking, I was thinking about my time spent in college and how right there on campus corner there were all these places that I use to go to that don't even exist anymore.  Like these bars and restaurants that I used to love to go to that turned into different bars and restaurants and have since turned into different bars and restaurants some of which now I love to go to. (I'm talking about you Fuzzy Tacos) And this made me think over all of these other places that I know have changed over the years.  And it started to make me think, because when you are younger everything seems so final, like it's going to be there forever you know.  Weather it's your parents marriage, or the house you grew up in, or the school you went to, or the baseball park you use to play at.  But as you get older you start to see all of these changes and you begin to realize that everything seems to be a different version of something else and the longer you live the more this seems to be true.

And it gets to a point where you start to forget that old version of what was there.  I think people tend to be the same way.  I think our whole lives we are constantly becoming different versions of ourselves good or bad.  I mean at our core we will always be ourselves, but as the years go on we get a little be more conservative or liberal, we value different things a little be more or less and we have a little bit more life experience.  And the crazy thing for me is that I'm not quite sure that the version of myself from the last 5 years of my life has been my best self.  But I'm hoping the version over the next 5 years will be.  





The Richard Linklater
Sunrise Trilogy one of my 
favorites

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's 

Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy 

another one of my favorites

Happy Mother's Day - FOR SHERRY

Today is a special day boys and girls.  I know that if you're reading this then you're probably on Facebook and you probably have seen the millions of updates testing to what you are about to read.  So for that let me just reiterate what everyone and their dogs have already said.  Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and soon to be mothers out there. To all the women out there that aren't necessarily mother's but have look after and loved someone as if they were.  Because without the mothers of the world out there you wouldn't have some sap like me here writing this blog.  Thanks Mom!

Now that that is out of the way I think that I will use this little bit of time I have before me and my sister take my mom to see the great gatsby to talk about a special lady that I have in my life.  To say that my mom is the best mom in the whole wide world would be quite the understatement.  And I guess from as early on as I could remember I have always been a mama's boy.  Now as hard as my dad tried to boyz n the hood me and make me a man (which he did by the way, I am a man, for all those out there that have something to say about it.) I have been and will always be a mama's boy. 

And it's crazy because the older I get the more I realize that I am so much like my mother it is crazy.  Everything in me that is thoughtful of others, patient, loving, and my love for cooking I get from her.  But don't let all that I just said fool you because my mother can also be a bit of a hard ass (somebody just ask on Christopher Ponder if you don't believe me... Oh and as some of you out there might not know who Christopher Ponder is, that's my father)  And I like to think that I get that from her as well.  

I'd like to tell a few stories about her that I always especially remembered.  When I was a kid I played sports, and my dad was always my coach.  Well my mother didn't always come to my games because she thought that she made me nervous.  And I would always tell her that she didn't but in reality she did.  Whenever I would look up in the stands and she her but there I would always try to throw a little bit harder to strike everyone out or swing a little bit harder to hit a home run for her.  Or if I was on the basketball court shot a little bit more to score points for her.  And of course it always backfired and I always had some of my worse games when she came to watch me play.  And after every game I would go up into the stands to sit by her pouting and she would always tell me how great I played, and I would just smile and give her a big hug.  

I remember my senior night playing basketball she came and I we had the whole senior night ceremony before the game or at halftime or whenever and I was so excited.  You have to understand I wasn't really the greatest of basketball players, I mainly got by because I worked hard and was charlie hustle on the court... But on senior night I was gonna score 20 points for her.  I'm pretty sure a few air balls and ill advised three pointers later I was being hell at by my coach on the bench.  We ended up winning the game and I got back in the game and if i remember correctly my stat line was something like 6pts 7rebs 3assts 5tos it was a pretty pathetic night by anyones standers and after the game I went up into the stands and give my mom a hug, and she told me I was the best on out there.

And that's my mom.  It always has been and always will be, even when I suck, which has been quite a bit she always always thinks that I'm the best. 

I was almost done with college and I came home to hang out with her one weekend.  I was in her room laying in bed bothering her I'm sure when I looked over at her nightstand and saw a framed picture of me with from when I "played" at OU if you want to call it that.  She had went on the internet and printed out the picture of me from the website and put it in a picture frame. Even in one of my biggest failures in my life my mom was still proud enough to frame a picture of me.  

So I'm gonna stop writing right now, because I need to go see Leo get is Gatsby on, but let me just end by saying if you have a mother that is even half as cool as my mom, you need to get your ass on the phone or drive over there right now and tell her you love her.  Because it is the mothers that wiped our butts, and comforted us when we were sick, and cheered us on in whatever we did.  I LOVE YOU MOM, THANKS FOR BEING MY BIGGEST FAN.

Moments

It's sunday afternoon and it's a beautiful day outside.  I'm slightly hung over from a great night out with some great people, I'm watching Friday Night Lights, and all I can say is that my heart is full.  I've been meaning to write this post for sometimes now and you know what I thought today was as good as time as any other.  So here I go on another adventure of what I like to think is eloquent writing.  

So in me re-watching this show all the way through for like the third go around(yeah that's right third time through, I am a bit of a loser.)and I realized just what it is I love about this show.  Now besides everything, the thing that I really love about this show are the moments.  Those are the things that really matter in this show.  Every show has its melodrama and every show is trying its best to entertaining.  But not every show can move you with the moments that it puts in them.  And that is exactly what Friday Night Lights does.  

Obviously this is a television show, so of course it's not real, but I promise you if you ever have the chance to watch this show and you don't feel the things that these characters are feeling then you just don't have a heart.  Because every moment that exists in this show good or bad are so spectacular.  And every character is this show gets his or her due.  They all get their moments and then some. And boy do they all shine in them.

And that's when I started to think what is life, but just a series of moments?  And that these moments that we have in life are exactly what shape us.  We take these moments and like puzzle pieces we put them all together trying to make the picture that becomes our lives. All the moments good and bad, the first time you played catch with your dad, the first time you saw star wars, the first time your mother put a band aid on you when you scraped your knee, the first time you pitched a shut out, when you graduated high school, when you got grounded for coming home drunk, when you got cut from the college team, when you watched Closer and realized you loved writing, when you told a girl you loved her for the first time, when you got your heart broken for the first time, when you decided to not be afraid of failure.  These are those moments and this is the picture that has become your life.

I think sometimes we just don't get it though, we just don't see the meaning in these moments or we think they are too mundane or we read entirely too much into them.  We don't just sit back and appreciate them for what they are or for what they mean to us.  I'm going through a complete roller coaster of moments lately and for good reason.  Some of you out there that read this stupid little thing probably know, and some of you don't and that's fine too because it doesn't matter either way, I'm not even going to talk about it. 

Not too long ago I had a totally zen moment... I had this moment that was just so pure of anything that I found myself in tears (I know surprise surprise Brandon's crying again.) the moment was just so beautiful that I just couldn't help myself.  And to steal a line from a movie that I so dearly love in that moment all I could feel was infinite.  And the crazy thing about me saying that is I remember watching that movie (Perks of Being a Wallflower) and when the character said that line I just got goosebumps and thought to myself man i want to feel that.  And then a couple of Saturdays ago I was down at the Arts Festival with my MOM, AUNT, and SISTER and I had to leave to go somewhere, I'm really not sure right now, but I was leaving and I put in my headphones and was just walking downtown on one of the most beautiful Saturdays of this entire year.  And there are people everywhere, and I'm listening to the Django Unchained Soundtrack, and I'm walking by the Devon Tower, and this song Freedom comes on and as the cool breeze his me and the music is blaring in my ears and I'm looking at all these people I realize that I am having a moment that I'm never going to have again, that nobody in the history of the world will get to have again and I just thought about how beautiful life is, even the shitty parts, and I just had to cry tears of joy.

 Now I know that if you're reading this thing you just might think I'm plum crazy. But the truth is I'm just writing this to let people know that they should be taking this stuff seriously, they should take that moment with your mother, or your spouse, or your friends, or your kids, or just that moment spent with yourself doing the thing you love the most seriously.  Because that moment is making you the person that you are this very day, this very second, and that moment is beautiful, and you might never get another one like it.