Michaelrobb's Weblog

Last night I learned that a person from the real world that knows me found this blog. And admittedly, when I began writing, I assumed that my accountability partners would know about it… and of course, my wife would know about it… but I thought no one else would find it. Mind you, no one except people who know of me in real life could find it since the name of the website/weblog is my name… so, I guess that wasn’t thought through very well…

Anyway, this month has been another month in the “Atlanta Experiment” Yippee!
The best part of this month is knowing that this will be the last month in the experiment. Because next month… the experiment will become our life (I’ll get work in my field and we’ll endeavor to buy a house) or… the experiment will be terminated and we’ll move out of the city to pursue quiet Christian living (that includes child bearing and rearing – with an eye to launching back into the fray at a later date).

So, there is the announcement that I’ve been holding back.

I don’t really want to post about the past week. Not because it was bad… or good. I just don’t want to. So, I’m not going to.

Last night, I had some significant difficulty sleep. Maybe that was related to my diet… maybe it was a restless mind… I don’t know. I do know that I was up at 1:30 and not back asleep at 2:30. So, I got up and got onto the computer. Thankfully, I ended up using the time to be productive and before 3:45 rolled around I had headed back to sleeping again (this time, on the couch with sleep-worthy sounds* in my ears).
*I was listening to this debate. I did not make it to the first rebuttal! lol I guess that means I succeeded in my sleeping goal.

After waking up a few hours later, I did some light online reading and went to be with Hayley. We spent some time reconnecting and then came into the study to begin our day together. I had made some plans and Hayley consented to them – she even recommended that we do week two of Financial Peace University to start the morning right. I brewed coffee and we started the lesson. Once we finished it, with our actions steps in hand, we began our day.

We sang psalms, ate a late breakfast, meal planned, started laundry, and texted people to confirm upcoming events. Finally, we parted ways so Hayley could go grocery shopping and I could make progress on personal projects. The first one: writing here.

There’s lots of other things that I want to do also… maybe I’ll write some about that next. Maybe not. Either way, that about sums up the post for November 16, 2019. It’s likely that later in the day, we’ll have Mitch and Lori over for dinner and Mitch and I will slip out to run errands (returning projectors, collecting debit cards, returning dvds & players, etc.) After that… the Lord only knows. Pray that it may be more righteousness and less sin.

It has been a very long time since I have made a “post for…” post. And I have no intention of recommitting to an attempt at daily posts. However, as I’ve spent time creating and updating the pages: Every Published Post. and Index, I’ve really grown to appreciate the “post for…” posts. So, I figured that it’d be a good idea to make one as a gift to my future self.

On Thursday November 7, I was in a car accident. It was very minor and I experienced no physical injury. This was the second car accident that I’ve had since moving to Atlanta; the second car accident I’ve had while working for Laughing Pets (on the way to a visit); the second car accident I’ve been at fault for… and frankly, neither was very fun. Thankfully, in both cases, I was not injured and the other driver was not injured. But I can’t help but wonder… have I learned my lesson yet? Am I willing to give up cell phone use while driving… to give up Laughing Pets? I don’t think I am yet. Eventually I will be and I feel myself nudging that direction, but I can imagine a pleasant future that includes my continued working with Laughing Pets.

Although I was in a car accident, it was not the only part of the day. I received a call (out of the blue) from my old pastor, William, and received some hard news that his family is going through… it was good to get to be a friend and to be reassured in believing that he is my friend.
I so miss that church and his family – but especially that church. Worshiping with them was one of the greatest ongoing regular experiences of my life… and I will always be grateful for the role that congregation played in that season of my life.

Additionally on Thursday, Hayley and I had a maritally intense day. We cried together in the morning, cried together in the afternoon, and cried together in the evening.

The final noteworthy thing of Thursday was door-knocking. #ApartmentLife

******

Friday was much, much better. We woke up and drove to LifeGate together since my car was damaged. I stayed with Hayley there catching up on Apartment Life training before heading to visits for Laughing Pets. And I returned (with food) to LifeGate after completing the day’s visits.

When Hayley’s shift came to an end, we returned to Highland Lake and gave a gift of wine to the leasing staff (and checked in to end the week #ApartmentLife), and caravaned up to see Hayley’s family. We dropped my car off for body work with Jason and continued on to dinner with Ange and David. Before dinner, we played with the puppies – I had a great time watching Torvi eat; after dinner we sat in the living room and played on screens and talked. Finally, we headed over to Katie’s to make wreaths and play hide-and-seek with the boys.

We made it home after midnight and went straight to bed.

*****

Saturday, Nov 11 started very slowly. Hayley left to go to Clothes closet and I laid on the couch playing Risk far too long. Eventually, I got up and cleaned the house some and eventually turned to blogging as I am now. Hayley has just made it home and prepared leftovers for lunch. God only knows what we’ll do with the hours He entrusts us with this day. Whatever it is, I pray it is less sin and more righteousness.

In a Post for January 22-23, 2016 I wrote, “I regret that I am not writing more fun stuff. I am sure that in due time I will. For now, thanks for reading my daily reports…”

And I have to admit that as someone deeply interested in past Michael Robb… those daily reports really are ‘fun stuff’.

That being said, I know that I have an interest in past Michael Robb that far exceeds the interest of the common person. So, it still stands as stated in my About page – I “created a blog in order to benefit myself…”
If it benefits you too, that’s wonderful.

This blog needs a scrubbing.

I’ve been away for quite some time and the posts need review. One of them is particularly cringe-worthy; many of them are remarkably bland; many more ought to be written.

Also, my life needs a scrubbing.

I was thinking about this song I used to listen to that had a chorus “wishing you could see me now; wishing I could show you how… I’m not who I was…” I remembered listening to that song as a late teenager and thinking at the time how I had remade myself and was drastically better “now” than how I was…
But when I relistened yesterday, it was just sad. Because instead of hopeful optimism about who I am now and how much better that is than who I was, I experience despairing pessimism about who I am now and how much worse that is than who I was.
Ultimately, that’s no way to live and I can still imagine a future me that is better than current me, but I’m wishing that you -whoever that is- can not see me now and that you would not see how… I’m not who I was.

I like who I was. I don’t like who I am.

In a week and a half, I’ll commemorate my fifth anniversary with my wife. This has been the hardest year either of us has faced so far.
Moving to Atlanta has been heart-ache upon heart-ache.
Probably the hardest bit for both of us to bear has been the loss of hope.

Here’s to scrubbing.
May we find in the efforts a person worth being and a person worth sharing.

I have not published (or drafted) anything for this blog in 13 months. Yet, last month there were 7 visitors to this site. I don’t quite know what to make of that. Why were they here? What does this site do for anyone but me? And is it doing anything for me if I’m not engaging with it?

So… this is my new post. I’m going to start using this space again.

More to come.

My grandparents – I’ve been staying with them for the past week – seem to live in such a way that they are living to continue living and to see their grandchildren “succeed in life”. But it’s not exactly clear what it means to succeed in life. And what does it mean that they are living to continue living? Have they already succeeded and this is their reward: watching those they love also take steps to succeed? Or did they fail to succeed and this is their consolation: watching those they love also take steps to succeed? Or maybe, they are still on the journey just a few decades ahead, trying in their own right to “succeed in life”.

 

What does it mean to succeed in life?

Can you fail in life?

 

There is certainly a way to create and inhabit hell on earth – surely that would be failure, right?

 

So maybe success is moving away from hell on earth?

But then you die.

 

I can’t conceive of succeeding in life without contemplating life-after-death. Isn’t that life’s span going to be much longer than the span of life before death? I guess it wouldn’t be if it didn’t exist at all [or if it did exist but just happened to be shorter – can time even be measured after death? Isn’t time just an construct  by which we measure the distance between successive iterations of ordinally linked timespace?]…

If you don’t exist at all after you die, does what you do before you die really matter to you? No. It only matters to you as long as you are alive.

So, in my estimation it’s life-after-death or nihilism (or numbing addictions/distractions).

Which brings me back to the starting sentence of this paragraph, “I can’t conceive of succeeding in life without contemplating life-after-death.”

 

If there is life-after-death, that’s got to be one of the greatest inquiries of the age. Can it be prepared for on this side?  Is it static?

Who can know these things?

 

Does succeeding in life mean adequately discerning the nature of life after death and preparing for it? Surely that must be the bottom rung without which there is only failure… right?

So, I have no idea what is next in my life.

I had a plan. It was in full swing. It came crashing down.

So, now I have lots of free time that I did not expect to have and it is abundantly clear that I do not know what to do with it.
I’ve played video games; I’ve watched Youtube videos; I’ve read a few books; I’ve done some around the house landscaping; I’ve kept up with the laundry; I’ve taken long walks.

And then it occurred to me that I might use this time to review and comment on those things I’ve long wanted to review and comment on.

The things I’ve collected for this task are notecards, bookmarked webpages; liked videos; and uncompleted blog post prompts.
Part of the difficulty in simply beginning is that I find myself paralyzed by the notion of unclear categorization. How will I keep things straight and orderly? How will they relate to one another? Will there be an index? Will they be segregated by how they entered my field of observation or by the nature of their content?

I don’t have an answer for that yet. I think I’ll likely add them arbitrarily to an index as I address them. Eventually, I will hope to organize more effectively and shape the website that I have; but for now, that is beyond my scope and beyond my goal. I’m not yet to the place of creating something pretty and easy to use. Instead, I am hoping by my creation to alleviate record storage offline and provide a searchable database (albeit, cluttered and disorderly).

Here’s to the season God has given me.

Cheers.