I don’t often recall my dreams. In fact, I’m mostly uncertain what leads to the recollection of these things. I generally fall fast asleep, and before I know it, the alarm is going off to wake me to the new day. Sometimes, on a weekend, I’ll remain in bed without an alarm and that seems to be the best route to find myself experiencing the dream state.

Last night, though I went to bed at a fairly standard time of 10pm, and was likely asleep at 10:30 after some brief journaling, I found myself nearly wide awake at 3am. Deciding to go back to bed, I fell quickly back to sleep. It seems in the last three hours, my dreams were alive again.

For the most part, I don’t like dreaming. As a kid, most of my dreams were of the scary, nightmare’ish variety. I would dream of a world tied to reality in which I was trapped in some way. Recalling the steps at the Juneau Christian Center at such a size that I could only go down the concentric ring of stairs, but they were just tall enough and I with no tools could not ever climb out. It’s a feeling of entrapment that I could never shake. That sensation would sometimes come to me in consciousness, as recently as last Tuesday while receiving a massage. My brain begins processing things as enormous entities, dwarfing me and creating a sense of fear out of nothing. I perceive things to be a different engorged size which of course is both strange and terrifying, “for we were grasshoppers in our own sight” (Numbers 13:33) as even the people around me are recognized as terrifyingly large.

And then there was the memorable ongoing childhood nightmare of being trapped on a ferry (that had it’s own onboard dock) and throughout the vessel I was chased and continuously entrapped by a host of Cyclops. I’ll save that one for another day.

Last night, it was a dream of sex. I don’t know why they come about, and generally, I don’t particularly mind them at the time – there don’t seem to be consequences beyond my woken response of guilt & regret. Last night I think I recognized the woman initially as Rekann, but then eventually noticed that she was Helen. It was in a place small and rundown by time, reminiscent of a trailer like room just larger than my mother’s own bedroom through my childhood. I don’t often recall the acts themselves, more the circumstances surrounding them. My “suitor” preparing for the act, or other innocuous details of engagement (like her adjusting a piece of insulation on the wall which released a tarp which had somehow been connected to the outside of the residence).

Maybe this links into what I had written last night before bed. Maybe it’s some type of consideration of what the future would be. Guilt in engaging with another in a post marital state. If Heather were to pass on this mortal coil and I find myself alone, would it be okay for me to begin the courtship again? Frankly I have no clue.

I can’t tell if I would rather outlive Heather or if she ought to outlive me. I would like to save her the pain of having me die and leave her behind, but simultaneously, I don’t want to steal the joy she may have in subsequent years with our family and friends. Of course this is easily flipped to myself. Do I want to stick around years beyond her death? I recognize that I don’t really have any control over these things. When it’s our time, it’s our time… As I was just reading this morning “Thy will be done.”

There’s a mantra good to live by.

-cb

How do you help people? Should you help them? How do you encourage people to grow themselves?

When other people ask those questions about me, how would I hope they respond? Should I tell them to continue pressing on? Should I tell them to give up hope? Push harder? Be gentler? What tactic works best to create the best instance of me?

When other people come into my life and find themselves sharing their load and burdens with me, what’s the best way I can handle the situation? I know that the best vehicle and tools that I have ever seen are to be found with worldwide and amway global. There is no close second. If I know that, why do I continue to hold back from reaching out to those I don’t know (or even those I do) to help encourage them to become better and more, and to abandon their present path, even though they cling to it from familiarity.

I just finished sitting with Sterling and Alex who relayed their concerns and challenges about a variety of topics, and the thing I kept thinking was simply that Bill had chatted with me yesterday very simply about the “Power of Association”.

I am destined for greatness. I am capable beyond all understanding. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Who am I to not be great? God has made me, and he done good.

And here I sit, late into the evening, and wondering still about my purpose; concerned at the divergence of purity and dilution. Do I keep on the straight and narrow, or do I venture off into the weeds and vines and get caught up with all that the Lord has left out of his picture. I know that He wants the best for me, and I want that too. It’s a trying experience to be so worldly, and to know that I’m destined for more. It leads people to guilt, not to lay down in His presence.

So again, I ask what shall I do with this hand I’m dealt. I live a moderately functional life, I know that I can have more, and I dearly want those I love and care about to want more for their lives too.

I want to be proud of the man that I am, and where I am going. If I sit quietly aside and watch my life head nowhere in particular, I’m left with the twang of pain and remorse and regret from the lack of action. Bedsores in life. I want to be a man who strives valiantly towards a greater good. To free the captives, to free my wife, to free others who want more out of life. Freedom Enterprises. Corny? Important.

And now we get close to 1am, and I’m still here typing. For some reason I’ve been thinking furiously and want to know that I’m a good man. My absence from work today was simply to hopefully recharge my spiritual batteries and to make an effort to fight the good fight. I spent 4 hours reviewing various worldwide talks from Maxwell, Tsika, and more and yet my heart still needs a burst of love and support from those I lean upon for love. I think I’ll just crawl into bed and cuddle with my wife and quietly wish for the strength to step out on faith and do the terrifying so that I can give her what she so desperately deserves.

So, for me, good night. For you, good day. And for all, good luck.

With love, sorrow, hope and more,
-Cody

It’s lunch time and my pizza is rapidly cooking in the toaster oven (man I love those things!) I thought I’d take a moment to post another entry as a time of reflection. I noticed (again) that I had a template constructed and ready to be used, so I thought I’d use it as the hopper to toss my ideas and thoughts into. Let’s see what comes out:

First Things First

I’m doing a blog entry, isn’t that enough?

Sleep Log

less than normal, not enough, more than I’d like. I’ve been feeling blah lately, so I keep thinking more sleep might help, but really, it doesn’t seem to. I love the idea of a mere 3-4 hours a night, but I don’t like the physiological burn that I get in the afternoon following several of those days. The other thing I noticed, especially during the wedding planning was that sleep was far less necessary when there was a dream with a deadline rapidly approaching. I’m not sure that I sense that peril right now.

Humor

i’ve got my macbook pro now, and lots of people are surprised to know i’ve got one. I find it funny as I never knew that I developed so much clout for the pc side without ever really voicing any opinion on the matter.

Struggle

heather and I get to figure out the topic of sex. we both want more, but want it to be natural, and we’ll see where it goes. further, i’ve been funkified lately, so I’m looking forward to getting up out of that. I think it will be linked to my performance in our business, but we’ll see soon enough, I suppose.

Beauty

I have a beautiful wife. I’m looking forward to spending some time with her this evening.

Kindness

I guess I get to help nick develop his skillz sometime next week while he takes pictures of sterling.

Classes

not sure what this one is for. maybe what I’m learning? Learning to get back on the bandwagon for personal development.

Goals for Tomorrow

I’m still on today…

[okay, this is where i stop and get off this ride – I’ve gotta eat my pizza and get back to work. ttfn! -cb]

Something New (learned)

Something Old (what did I apply?)

Something Neat (daily story?)

Something Spiritual (did I do anything spiritual)

Something Physical (what activity did I do?)

Something Emotional (what emotion do I recall from the day?)

Something Relationship (notes from my relationships)

Something directional (goals for tomorrow or otherwise)

Something Slight Edge (what have I done that builds my future?)

I’ve been pretty good about posting – three days in a row now!Prior to this, I kept up well at my wedding site (http://codyjbennett.com/wedding) as it was fun to share with others the ongoings of the wedding life.

While I may continue several more posts from that experience, I’d also like to get back to the (slightly) more mundane posts here. An ongoing journal shows the experiences of life, and allows the day-to-day blur of life to be more obvious than when posts are separated by 2-3 months.

This morning I awoke at 4 am after going to bed at midnight (or so) and found myself up and getting a snack, going to the bathroom, and laying back down – only to realize that I was actually awake… So I got myself up and finished up the editing the wedding of Brian Thatcher & Julie Patz. Photos are right now exporting to a final state so that I can upload them to my site – it’s a great feeling to be complete and I look forward to sharing them with the couple (as well as Mom who contracted my services).

I still have to create a “Bride’s book” type thing, which will be interesting to see where that goes since there doesn’t seem to be any sort of clear explanation online at other photographers sites describing that product. We’ll see.

For now, I’m simply excited to be done, be another day closer to receiving my macbook pro, and to getting on down the tethered world of web surfing. 🙂

I guess I should probably make sure that I’m ready to roll for work and maybe even go in a bit early to get a mocha on the way!  Ta-ta for now!

-cb

I think it’s more like the 5th since I haven’t yet gone to bed for the night, so that might be another consecutive day… If so, cool! (the other possibility is that the other entries were also in the same late night setting so they were actually tracked as the following day…)

Anyhow, during the last entry, I was thinking that a technique that Amanda Sauro used when doing her weblog. She had different categories that she put down and then spoke to each of them with the recap of the day. She had: First Things First, Sleep Log (just when she woke up and went to bed), Humor, Struggle, Beauty, Kindness, Classes, and Goals for Tomorrow. If I recall correctly, she got the idea from watching Oprah. Even stranger, Oprah is not spelled incorrectly according to MS word – I guess if you’re a TV personality, you can have your name added to spell checkers! Neat!

Alright, so back on track now… I was thinking of instituting a similar process, but in my thinking, I was considering changing it slightly to help me develop as a person. It might be good to have sections like: Something New (learning), Something Old (application), Something Neat (daily story?), Something Spiritual (did I do anything spiritual), Something Physical (what activity did I do?) Something Emotional (what emotion do I recall from the day?), Something Relationship (notes from my relationships), Something directional (goals for tomorrow or otherwise).

It seems like a longer list than I thought it would be, but lets see what it would look like (I’ll include Amanda’s/Oprah’s list as well…) Here goes!
First Things First
I like the effect of Journaling – It’s a nice way to reflect on my day.
Sleep Log
Um, got up at noon (was up till 5 or 6 am yesterday so I only got 6 hours of sleep.) Planning to go to bed right after this – it’s 2:36 AM right now. I did get to take a nap this evening, but I have no clue how long it was.
Humor
John and I were talking about the potential skits associated with winning the Home Incentive Promotions – Like doing parody songs or movie scenes… That was entertaining to put a cleaning twist on songs like Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice…
Struggle
Communicating my interest level clearly without hurting others (in reference to the relationship I have with Helen. We went to Costco today, and I just didn’t have a hang out be social type aura to me.)
Beauty
Hmm… I don’t think I recall anything right off… I guess I did see a nifty little mazda mx8 or something like that – a little red sports car for broke people I’d guess.
Kindness
I was nice to take Helen to the Post Office and to the Bank before going to Costco.
Classes
I don’t really have any, though I was thinking of approaching the homework that is associated with the PADM class that I took over the summer. I also need to review that homework.
Goals for Tomorrow
Attend my little Brother’s graduation. And be nice with the family – even if it leads to dinner or other activities.
Something New (learned)
Goofed around looking at the registry of my computer and found some neat spots – though I only disabled some startup services and removed some registry entries for startup items.
Something Old (what did I apply?)
Hmm… Dunno.
Something Neat (daily story?)
Something Spiritual (did I do anything spiritual)
Something Physical (what activity did I do?)
Something Emotional (what emotion do I recall from the day?)
Something Relationship (notes from my relationships)
Something directional (goals for tomorrow or otherwise).

Ack, having too many items really leads me to not want to write any more… I guess I’m already 2 pages in almost so I’ll just call it good at that. It’s 2:44 am now. I’m planning to get up at 8:30 am.

G’night!

So, how do you know what true love is? Is it okay to base a relationship off of something that isn’t true love? So many people do that, so many people seem oblivious to those truths.

I want to have a fantastic relationship, so I roll with the punches, and take the good with the bad. It seems that even though I’m interested in making the best of any situation, that sometimes, that simply isn’t good enough for the other person.

Here I am sitting at home, nearly one in the morning, and Helen just left, upset. We had a talk about future type things where she hinted that she wanted a relationship where I was something different than I am – talk about the future, about buying houses, and so on. She compares me with Scott (Mindy’s Scott) and I don’t know how to accept that – on one hand, I recognize that I’m not him, on the other hand, I’d like to meet some of Helen’s needs/wants.

We had a bit of a discovery today that perhaps we don’t love each other. I don’t really know what to think about that – on one hand, it might just be something that I’ve been thinking all along, but not wanting to call anyone on it – I recognize that we’ve been sleeping together, being selfish, hoping to have our “needs” met without thinking of how to meet the other person’s needs.

I want to love others, yet I know that isn’t possible if you don’t love yourself. How do you love yourself? You see value and worth, and understand that there is so much more to that other person.

— she came back—

hmm… Now it’s closer to 2 am…

She came back and asked if it was alright if she break up with me.

What am I supposed to do with that? What is the right thing to do? How quickly can I resolve the issues surrounding our relationship? What things are holding me back from being better at loving her?

I suppose on one hand, that it’s not so bad that she’s breaking up with me. I now have the ability to pursue other relationships, to flirt and date and build relationships without remorse. Heather, Brook, Heidi, Patricia, Lacey, all of the above seem to come to mind of people that I’d have the freedom know get to know better.

I am nervous of breaking up because I don’t want to gain the impression that I’m losing a battle – I want to be stronger than that, I want to provide for whatever needs might come along.

How do you find the right person? What do you look for? The willingness to change, the humilty, the selflessness… How can I be more selfless – how can I look to her to be the knight in shining armor, to be the one love that she’s known where without a doubt at all, that I am the one to provide that to her.

Do I want to break up with her? I don’t know.

Alright, I’m going to bed now.

3/25/04

Today I got together with Bill and Sharon and went to a lecture thing at the downtown library. Some guy talked about the research involved with writing his book, some 20 years of reading prepared him. The book was someone’s journal for the 18 months before the declaration of independence or something like that was signed. It was pretty interesting. He read a few exerpts from teh book which made it a whole lot more intriguing. Afterwards I worked at Bill’s shop, Sam’s Auto Body for an hour and a half, scuffing a bumper to be painted later. I then had spagetti for dinner & read a little, up to 99 pages now, but I gotta go – it’s past my bedtime. —