I had been there before. Many times actually. Something just can't be argued with. Two of those things being that standing on the Oceanside peir was not a new experience for me, and I was there yesterday. Looking back less than 20 hours, it still seems some how impropable that I was really standing there. Is is that improbabilty of it stems from how far outside my usual routine it lies? Or is it something else?

The last time I stood there, staring shadowingly towards the ocean, Jene was at my side. The Ocean was speaking it's tale of prospects. Of love blooming to its fullest. Young men and women pledging to spend their new life together. An old couple walked past us. They were holding hands and openly displaying the strong love. How long had they been togehter? Thrity years? Forty years? Possibly fifty or more years? Jene and I huddled closer together, and pledged that would be us in fifty years.

This time I was alone. It was a perfect California day. Two little girls were roller skating inside the amphitheater. Their mother sat on the stage, calmly reading a book, enjoying the precious moments of motherhood. As I walked the quarter of mile of wood planks and fisherman, the ocean lopped it's mournfull tune in my ears. I have always been able to hear it. With Jene it was a happy funurel march. Cajun style: greif for newborns, happiness for the dead. Now the march of the ocean's song remains the same, only the melody has slowed down, releasing an unmeasurabe amount of exurberience.

As I stood in the end of the pier, studying the nuances of a rip tide one hundred yards from shore, my thoughts turned to God. Suddenly I began to calmly pray.

"You and I are even, you know that. You never answer my prayers, and I don't answer your calls" I have never been one for formal prayers, especially to a God I'm mad at. Believing in God and his plans for the world is one thing, liking it is another. He has never given up on me, and just left me alone. And sometimes I just wish he would. Even at my worst moments, the times when I have felt firsthand the depth of the human capacity for evil, God has been there, comforting me.

"When, Lord, does regret stop being so painful?" I had been thinking about two moments when my life changed course, although I had not realized it. The first was my senior year of high school. I was prepared to join the Air Force after graduation and move on with my life. My father offered another choice. That as long I'm in college full time I am more the welcome to stay in his house. No doubt in mind remains that if I had enlisted in the Air Force Jene and I would be married right now. Happily or otherwise, I dare not make a conjecture.

The second moment came nearly a year ago. I came to pick up Jene one night for an evening out. I found her sitting alone in her darkening living room. Something had been bothering her. She just wanted me to sit there and comfort her. Worn out from having to choose between spending time with my friends and Jene, I choose my friends. I left Jene sitting there in the dark. I went on a concert with Ryan and Alana, quessy in the knowledge that I had decided then and there to break up with Jene. What if at that moment in her living I had been filled with the spirit of patience and understanding, instead of annoyance and weariness?

The Lord did answer my question. I began stare at a fishing line in the water. Out of focus in the my line of vision were both of my thumbs. I began to focus on my left thumb and the scar which runs its entire length.

Do you remember how it felt when you cut open your thumb?

"Well, yah, it hurt like hell" I thought to myself.

But do you really remember how it felt?

No, I had to admit. I remember screaming, running around the house in pain. I remember that it was bandaged for weeks. I can't remember the pain. I remember that I felt an enormous amount of pain, but I can't remember what the pain felt like.

What makes you think the rest of your life is any different than your thumb?

E.H.Whittemore
01.15.99