New Skin

This is going to be a bit ranty. I apologize.

I have this recurring theme in my nightmares. The dreams are always completely different, but I feel like the theme is the same. Maybe you've had one like this before.

I have these bad dreams where, I'm standing in front of a person or a crowd and I'm being asked to perform a task that, somehow, they think I'm capable of.

For example. one time, I had a dream that I was on the stage of a theater--think of the Granada in Lawrence--with big black walls and a stage elevated above the crowd. The venue is full of people, cheering and screaming in anticipation. I'm on stage, looking cool, with a guitar hanging from my shoulders. It takes me a second to realize that this crowd is here for me. They are here to be entertained by me. As my band warms up, the drummer taps his sticks, counts 1-2-3-4 and--

I remember that I can't play a single chord on a guitar. I'm not even sure if I'm holding it right in the dream.

Another dream goes like this...I'm in a play, but this time it's only in front of my family and friends and a few people I grew up with. I have this crucial monologue in some type of Shakespearean/Arthur Miller crossbred play...and again, I forget any and all words. I forget words that weren't even in the play to begin with. I freeze up and stare at the crowd in humiliation. They stare back.

----

I'll be 26 in 14 days. I am now closer to 30 then I was 20. While I know there is still a meaningful life to be found at 30, I can't help but feel like a fraud.

I now have a job, some would even call it a career. I have a community now. And for all intents and purposes, Liberty, MO has become my home.

For all intents and purposes, I am an adult.

----

I wonder how many more birthdays I can make it through before somebody around me finally reaches across my birthday cake....slips a hand under my cheek, and pulls off this 26 year-old mask to see a 10-year old boy under it.

----

I got into a discussion with a friend the other day about some guy issues she's having. We talked about what it means to trust in God and what it means to risk. At the end of a good conversation, she paid my an earnest compliment by saying that I was a "wonderful, Godly man."

I sat back for a second, lifted my hand to my face, and in vain, tried to find the seam where the mask of her summation met the skin of my reality. No luck. I just kept poking myself in the collar bone with my fingers.

It was one of those moments where you feel bad. You shouldn't. It was a kind word she paid me. But it's like somebody called you a hero and, having met Superman before, you know that you do the word hero an injustice.

----

I see my friends growing into their new skins quite well. They have all grown up to become families or homeowners or adventurers. They seem to enjoy their new skin quite well. It fits them. They don't look like they borrowed theirs from their dad or from a bum off the street.

It's crazy to think that 10 years ago, most of us were learning to drive and our biggest worry was a rogue zit.

----

Utter confusion. That's all I can say.