RAW

How easy is it to complain about circumstance?  Especially if you are just a bystander, on the sidelines watching.

I watch football this time of year. A LOT of football.  And the fans can be brutal.  When I listen to sports radio (less and less these days.  I enjoy it for a little while, but then it all mushes into the same talk, the same arguments), it's funny how callers will address things that happen on the field as "we should have done this" or "we needed a time out here".  So personal, but yet safe from having to be the one out there battling for 10 yards at a time.
 

I'm sure that the UGA fans on the radio will be doing some of this tomorrow!!!!!!

It's all fun, and athletes are there for competition and entertainment in my opinion.  But if you asked an athlete how it felt to be there in the final seconds, when they'd given everything and then the other team scores that winning touchdown.  Well that's RAW!!!

To get in there, give everything you have and to go through the battles for yardage takes a dedication and a determination.  You don't go into it with hesitation.  There is tons of preparation and study.  Yes, they study their butts off from what I've seen on the sidelines and documentaries. And when the game starts it's all in!

I don't mean to relate life to a game.  It's not a game.  It's a series of events and decisions that come together to form the tapestry of who I am.  But I do think that there are a couple of ways that I think about how the decisions, the events can be made to thrive and move forward.

1.  It is SCARY AS HELL to open up and allow yourself to be RAW with someone.  

It means that there will be times when you are exposed.  I do this one way too well.  I don't keep much back when I feel there is a layer of trust to be had.  I try to walk without fear of closing up.  But I get scared.   I get overwhelmed with allowing myself to feel.  And some people just can't handle it - not like the "You can't handle the truth!" quote from the Jack Nicholson movie, but it can make some people uncomfortable.  But I've lived the next way, and it scares me more than being raw.

2. To totally close up is DEATH.  

I mean an emotional and spiritual deadness that comes from being utterly alone.  We need each other.  We need other people who we trust and will walk through this life with us.  I went through a long stretch where I just stopped living.  I gave up on live as I wanted it to be and just sat.  I sat and let my walls be built.  I let me heart shrink smaller than the Grinch's.

I know there is a balance to being too open and being too closed off.  I actually don't just go around telling everyone all about me.   It doesn't just happen.  But it is still scary to open up, even to those close.  I just can't live it another way.

The team on the field that goes in, gives everything they have, uses their skills and determination may not always win.  But that's where the game and life differ.  I'm not trying to win.  I'm trying to be open to the world and those who I care about.  To seek out life and to savor with everything I have.