Hope in a half written journal entry

I opened my journal, and it's only fair to say, that I shouldn't even call it a journal. I should call it half prayer book and half "to do list" keeper...anyway I did have a journal entry/prayer yesterday and, I guess out of my a.d.d. or busyness I didn't finish it. This strangely gave me hope, as if I went through a break up and had one more chance to get a few things off my chest...or a broken friendship having another shot a redemption, or an opportunity to apologize to an enemy. In any case, maybe it's cuz I'm 30, but I've been really wanting to get up and finish the race. "The race" being a metaphor for so many things. My pursuits, dream, life, character, walk with Christ. Specifically I've been thinking about how I've lost my confidence in comedy. There was a time, whether I was ever good or not, I'd walk on stage with out a shred of doubt in my head and heart. Call it bravery, or call it ignorance, but either way I wasn't scared. Matter of fact, there were times that I so felt the rythm of comedic timing I felt like I could control the laughter of an 800 person crowd at the palm of my hand...prideful or confident? Maybe neither. If it's pride, I'm so far removed from that feeling it's hard to feel pride about it any more. Confident, I don't know. I think it was more enjoyment and unexpected, kind of like Matt Damon talking about equations comparing it to playing the piano...and how when it came to equations he could just play...that's how I used to feel about comedy. Maybe I was really confident because I never cared. I never was trying to be funny, it was just a repetative comment that I heard over and over and over and over, till I finally believed it. Maybe this was my mistake. I believed the flattery. Either way....then the paint began to chip off the building. My life met the depths of my selfishness, immaturity, and moral depravity years ago, what feels like another world or rerun of an old movie that I played so much I wore out the vhs tape...and I not only found my comedy....my art...but I also found my whole person floating out to outerspace...and I would reach for it...and it's been a painful reach...I imagine floating in outerspace, with my life, my identity, my comedy within arms reach, but yet cannot grab it...bummer, huh? A few years after the collision of failure, that set my life in a direction of misery (at least it's felt like)...direction of misery filled with blessing, fun, and laughter too!...there's my trying not to be a debbie downer moment, or my moment of gratefulness despite my own screw ups...or recognizing that God is still good even when I act like the prodigal son...the spoiled selfish little brat I can be...anyway after a few years, I got my rythm back, I was booking movies, traveling and performing, I was "funny" again. Then..something horrible happend that didn't just strip me of confidence, it broke me. Like in half. And ever since I've been trying to crawl back to recovery, and it's a crawl. Why? Well, I'm not 20, I'm married, I've got bills and responsibilities, I don't have the time to just dive head long in to just being funny anymore. I've got things to do. Oh, I hate it. But, I am thankful I'm not 20, that I'm not single, that I have things that cost, and jobs...so it's a push pull thing:-) What does give me hope is that there's still another day, more room in that journal to find my way home to a gift that never belonged to me in the first place. Maybe I'll find my way to the 20 year old version of myself and he'll kick my ass for taking life so seriously in the places where it doesn't need to be taken seriously at all, and then after he's done kicking my ass, maybe he'll teach me a knock knock joke or two.

thanks for reading.

Be God's,

David Leo Schultz