"It's a Lonely Feeling..."

"...it won't go away...." one of the great Robert Earl Keen songs talking about lonely moments. I just got off the phone with Casey, my brother. He got an awesome job building houses for a company in Kileen. That was exactly what he wanted to do, though probably not in Kileen, but it was the bomb job that he really wanted so he took it. He got an apartment. Moved in. Started life as most of us know it in the "working world". Mundane and methodical. Some a lot more than others. I think his job is actually really fun. Then you come home. Tired. No one to call because you are too new at work to really know anybody like that and no one to call from the rest of the city because you have not had a chance to meet them yet. I remember the post-college days. You soon wake up early with an internal alarm. You fall asleep at 10:00 and try to get up so you don't feel like a total loser, but there is nothing to do, so you succumb. Casey called me from a Wing restaurant of sorts. He was watching the BU v. KU game. His two most favorites. Alone. He was a great sport about it. It didn't really seem to bother him, but I know how he feels. The novelty of your transition finally sets in as reality. You have to start over. New people. A whole new masking of your true self until it is safe to unveil the real you to others. New trust. You can't share your personal jokes anymore, they are now absolute nonsense to the person next to you. But it used to be so funny. You used to be a big deal. Then you are the freshman all over again. The freshman in the workforce. Funny how we will all have freshman moments over and over. Does it end? I will someday soon be a freshman at being a parent. Mothers Day Out is the highschool of awkwardness same with playdates. Then it is PTA, ball games, the list goes on and on and on and on.....
Still, we have to realize, we are always in a season. We come, we master we bask in the glory of it all and then we simply move on. It sort of bumps you back to your foundation, and brings you closer to God. He is there, and never leaves. He wants you to go through the loneliness with a fight and a want. To appreciate the end result and move on to the next step. Such a lovely and difficult process. Still, it's a lonely feeling. For now, I pray my brother will enjoy this time to be by himself and appreciate the things that are to come. Friends never pass him by, he is too much fun. Too many good memories out there to go to waste. He will gain them soon, but for now, he will fight to keep his eyes open until his bedtime.