"seems i'm never tired" ... and other evening thoughts.

it's thursday evening - maundy thursday evening - and i'm sitting at my desk at church. this is the hour i like to write, and this is the place i like to write.

i used to write at this time a lot when i lived in chicago. i'd be in between the regular work day and the obligatory alumni board meetings, processing my day of bizarre lunchtime conversations with kirsten and anticipating an evening of bored board members discussing events they had no enthusiasm for anyway.

i'd leave those meetings, walk west on north avenue to the sedgwick stop with my ipod faithfully providing the soundtrack to my city life. i'd walk down that platform past the apartment building to catch the skyline view of the sears towers and its neighboring buildings. i'd breathe deep and close my eyes trying to remember that sight.

i still remember it. i can even smell the smoggy city air, the cta in the summer. i can picture the jehovah's witness in the morning, standing with his watchtower magazine open and pointed at anyone who might dare to catch his eye. i miss him.

and still, i left chicago. all because i fell in love with a boy.

i moved because i believed life would be better. it's the same reason i left minnetonka after high school. it's the same reason i left madison to go to chicago. i believe life is better with jon than without him.

i think love is a pretty incredible thing. what crazy things it makes you do. does it make sense that you'd give up your dreams for another person? does it make sense that you'd learn to speak another language not your own just to try and try and try again to tell that person you love him? does it make sense that you'd consider someone else before yourself?

no! but why does it feel so right?

because it's better to be with him than without him. and i can't explain that. even when it takes all the energy i have to figure out how to love him, and even when i fail most often in front of him, and even when it is not the easiest way to go, i still want to love him. i still want to. and i want to make that commitment.

hmmm ... and how right is it that nina simone's "seems i'm never tired of loving you" should be playing? what a sweet thing ...

Darling, you're always needed
And your tenderness is needed too
And it seems that I'm never tired loving you, loving you
never was a feeling stronger
aching for the sweet things you do
and it seems that I'm never tired loving you
should the mountains crumble to ashes
and the rain should cease to fall
and if the river stopped its flowing
and if the clouds cover the sky
so the sunlight wont come through
I will never, never, never, never, never,
never, tire of loving you.