Well, I'm feeling sad again, as my inherited depression gets to that certain point in the vicious cycle. But before, it got better after every time, but now I'm think I'm just getting more and more sad. I guess I've just been really thoughtful over the past few days, and so many thoughts are saddening.

So there is this kid I know, and his name is Garry. He has a deviantart. But anyway, so I met him last summer, and it's funny to think how exactly I met him because I remember everything about it. He comes into the store I'm working at and he has long brown hair like an emo kid, and a rather tightly fitted shirt to accentuate a nicely chiseled torso and these gym shorts, and sandals. He looks tired, I can surely relate to that, and for a long time he just stands behind the counter, hanging towards the back wall. He looks like he's new to the area, and he is, he just came from New York. So, I'm thinking his life isn't much, just like anyone else's, little do I know the story behind the man. It was funny, 'cause when I first saw him, so strange, something said, "Hey, that's your husband!" and I chuckled because my mind twists and twirles making pictures and yanking the heart into tortuous ribbons of paths inward to an everlasting construction of mountains, which are substantial in nonsense, and feeling. And when I looked into the store sign-in book, I saw this funny comment, and knew it had to be that guy, Garry, who looked like an adult and a boy at the same time, like awkwardly fitted pants or something. Thinking I'd never see him again, yet also thinking I'd see him for the rest of my life, I took one last observation and left.

Well, turns out he was the son of the story owner, and now I see him often. Weird, right? So, we really don't get along at all, and I've fought with him time over and over again. I find him mean, and inconsiderate, even arrogant, but despite these things, and despite how many times I've cried and tortured my mind powered by the words of his criticisms, I cannot deny that he speaks well, he knows his words, and he speaks in confidence and eloquence. Something I like and admire.

So, before all of that, the first time we really spoke was when he picked me up and drove me over to the next exit to see a movie or go window shopping or something. And what ends up happening, is neither of those things, but instead, I stay in his car for hours, listening to "The Story Behind the Man" cascade from fresh and sparsely-exercised lips. His eyes, his tone, warm with passion, and cooled with the heaviness of reality, then hardened like glass from the Fire, in lingering faith. As it turns out, he's already got a wife. At 19, he's got a wife, but he isn't married to her yet, and in fact, she's seeing someone else who has the same name as him, minus an R. Coincidence? He wouldn't think so, and I didn't know what to think. It was the first time I'd heard of someone absolutely knowing whom their spouse was going to be, on account of it being whispered by an all-knowing, active and diligent God. So, Garry's faith was unwavering. Seemingly.. conceitedley unwavering. So, maybe faith can move mountains, maybe not mountains we're always thinking of, maybe like mountains of doubt and hopelessness. He surely wasn't hopeless, I was, but hearing the story and being reminded of it always gave me hope for him.

I've had a lot of spiritual struggles. And especially now. Which is probably why I'm so sad. One spends an entire childhood believeing in something so innocently, with a faith that is unadulterated, and grows up to find that faith just butchered and plagued by the complexity and excessively-syllabled words that are uttered from the mouths of atheist scholars that lines the conduit of adulthood. Garry and I butt heads a lot, but what a faith he has, yes? And what comfort he must receive from it, too. I don't have that faith, and I highly doubt that I ever will, because I am a doubter at heart, it is just what I am and there's nothing more to that.

So, he is sure she is his wife, and he loves her powerfully, though is critical of her ways. So he was with her for awhile, and then it all vaporized. She left him, she went to school, and he, laden with with sadness for the abandonment decided to make some changes, to wait faithfully and look to God, and so God called him to come down here to good, old state of North Carolina, far away from his beloved geographically, but not so much otherwise. Then comes our meeting.

Years he waits. Years. And an entire year spent praying over her everyday, whether it be once or multiple times. He's just so confident and he knows. What he didn't know, what no one knew, was that I was waiting to, waiting like it'd be evidence for the existence of God. See, now this girl got engaged to be married and he was still confident, and I waited, watching for the miracle to happen. He had described her to be, and my heart ached to hear how similar she was to me. It was so funny, actually, because I'd imagined being so close to Garry and his family, growing up with them and being with Garry's brother, Vinny, and while Garry and Vinny joked together, Sarah and I would sing songs together for everyone and be close friends. And as Garry knew she was to be his wife, I just couldn't help but know that she'd be a good friend, too.

It was strange. There were times I'd just think of this girl who I'd never met and cry over her, sometimes praying, too. I thought maybe I could go up north and find her and tell her everything, and maybe she'd change her mind and come down to marry Garry. My heart felt as if it were dangling so closely and intimately with this girl, that there was just no way that Garry could be wrong. He waited, and I waited alongside him without his knowledge, ready to marvel at the predestined miracle and praise God.

Well, the first thing Garry tells me yesterday is that she got married. So, Garry was wrong about it all. Sarah and I will never meet. Garry and Sarah are likely never to speak to one another again. He sends me a photo of her wedding he found. She looks pretty, and she reminds me of me there, and she looks like what I thought she'd look like on her wedding day with Garry, and she looks scared and unsure, but it's already done.

I cried for the rest of the day. I don't know why. Something about it all was very sad. Garry had said to me, "When we're finally together, I'll write a book and everyone will read it, and it will be the second greatest love story; second to the love story of Christ's death for his beloved people." A story of strong faith. And it won't happen now.

Garry is still faithful through all of it. He only cried one night, and now after prayer and understanding he puts his renewed faith in God and moves on unphased. I would say it's something that I wouldn't understand, waiting for years over something that never happened and still moving onward with faith. Is it stupid? Is it absolutely inane? Or is this kind of faith just so rare and precious that its wonder surpasses the perspicacity of so many people today, who seem to be content with the prospect of antitheism, abyssal nothingness after death, and the absence of a loving and governing God so clothed with majesty and glory and power? I don't know. It would seem the latter.

Now I'm left thoughtful all over again, in a surreal state of ambrosial confusion and a keen sort of anguish that is challenging to describe. It's like everything has happened, and like nothing has, like I haven't even met him.

Now, I wodner if God speaks. It would seem to me that all evidence supports the existece of a God, so if there is a God, then why isn't He blatant with what He has to say? DOES He want to say anything to us? Or is it just in His Word? Does God reveal to patient, faithful people who their long-awaited spouses are? Is that possible? What about choice? What about God's plan? Is it a choose-and-ask-God-for-approval sort of thing, or is a God-has-a-plan-and-we'll-somehow-stumble-upon-it sort of thing? I've had several men tell me that they believed confidently that I was to be their wife. Severeal. Isn't that strange? So are they not driven by their own desire and not the special revelation of a divine plan? How do we know? How do we know when God is speaking and when He isn't? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I'm lost all over again, caugh up in wondering where God's plan and free will intersect.

Farewell & goodnight.
-al.