My Honest Thoughts.

Today I was reading the blog of a good friend of mine, a friend who both inspires me to keep writing here as well as offering constant words of encouragement and love at all the right times. Often when reading what she has to write I find out truths about myself, at times things that I don't even want to know or accept. Sometimes it almost feels as if she is writing to me or about me. Anyways, today I was reading her blog, and to the side of the page there was a list that caught my eye. It caught my eye because it has my name on it. It was a list of the blogs that she reads, and mine was one of the listed sites. What caught my attention though is the title she gave it: Mikes Honest Thoughts.

The past week or two I have felt a little strange to be honest. I have felt a weird absence from my normal self. A slight emptiness I guess. I haven't been depressed, or even sad. If fact, I love South East Asia, it's gorgeous. I am with fantastic people, having a fantastic time. But there is just something missing. I've narrowed it done to about a dozen possibilities. Nothings simple.

Over the past few days my friend, whom I met over washing dishes a little more than a year ago, has been challenging me to dig deep and find search hard for answers. And to be completely honest I'm still not sure what the deal is.

However this afternoon I read this Quote by Jack Kerouac:

"The only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn."

Over the past 7 or whatever months I have been traveling, I have over and over and over tried to figure out the person that I want to be when I return home. The "ones" that Kerouac is talking about above, completely describes the kind of person I want to be. I want to be that one.

I have a lot of friends that are Christians, or believers or whatever you like to call it, but I have few friends that I would describe as these "ones". That's not to say that I don't have friends that are those, because I do. And my friend I met a year ago over dishes, is one of them.

By no means is she perfect, but she has a fire in her that I haven't seen in many people. The awesome thing is that fire doesn't come out extravagant ways. It comes out in tiny ways (and trust me tiny is huge in this kingdom). She does the things that excites people that can see beyond the glitter and the glam, and she does them with joy.

So today as I thought about what was missing I stewed on Jacks words, and realized that maybe something isn't actually missing at all. Maybe it's been there right in front of me all along. I know what I want to be. I know how I want to be when this trip ends. The thing is I have to do it now. I have to be mad to live. I need to LIVE. I need not just to live BUT LIVE. Soak each moment, savour each taste, speak the words that need to be spoken, love those who need to be loved, and make no excuses. And I need to do it NOW.

I'm not sure this is the recipe to the weirdness that I feel right now, but I feel....better. Tomorrow is another beautiful new day, and I will give it everything I have, and take everything it has to offer.

As for her, I know she is far to modest to accept these words this easily, but from what I have seen she has been mad to live, mad to believe and mad enough to dare me to move. She burns, burns, burns. And I can't thank her enough for it. And those are just my honest thoughts.