a good name limits me.

While some people are struggling under a bad name, I think I may equally struggle under high expectations, and from some a good name. It just struck me. To a lot of people, I am “the good kid”. I think it’s mostly adults in the church that I work around. I think having too good of a name is a struggle too. It gets annoying.

I guess it’s probably because I was with Tom Murphy and some of his friends all afternoon after I left the lake yesterday. I can’t tell you how often those people praise me. Sure, they like to lift people up, but when they tell me “you’re more mature than the other kids”, I don’t like it. I used to like it A LOT, but I can’t stand it anymore. What I tell them when they say that is, “the only big difference between me and them is that I have a job, which has opened me to more discipline than just my parents now.”

I am limited as well, but it’s by having a good name. So many adults expect so much from me, that I always get sad looks when I don’t live up to what they wish I would. It doesn’t run my life, though. I really want to live realistically and be able to explain to these people that I am an average kid who’s gonna mess up. I think the only reason so many adults around the church like me anyways is because they’re probably patronized about me asking about their college and their careers.

On lighter, more interesting notes, yesterday was a blast. It wasn’t like one of those “blasts” where I had so much fun I didn’t know what to do with, but it was a brilliant cap to my weekend and my luscious “five days off work”. It was like having spring break, just pertaining to work. I got to spend some awesome time at the lake swimming, sitting around, eating, playing volleyball, and sword-fighting little kids on the dock with those foam noodle things. It was wonderfully lighthearted, and I feel content and complete with everything that happened yesterday.

Tonight I am meeting with Josh. I don’t know if Chris will be able to come along because he went into McDonald’s for orientation earlier. I’m so proud he got the job, maybe he and I will be able to influence everyone else to get a job. Josh is trying for one. Jenny wants to work at Sonic. I heard through the grapevine that the Woods are gonna try to get Jeremy a job, too. The only bad thing is that we’ll all have conflicting schedules this summer if everyone gets a job. But the good thing is that we’ll all be able to sit down and tell “job stories” when we all finally DO get to get together.

Overall, I’m not sunburned very badly from the lake yesterday, and what is sunburned is turning tan already. People were making fun of me at work today cause of the sunburn. They would say something about me, then go “don’t turn red Noah!” I love the kids I work with, I’m glad they have a sense of humor. There’s nothing worse than working with a bunch of crabs. Danika came in as I left. She looks like a good worker, I think, but you know everyone wants to LOOK like a good worker on their first day.

Well, I’ve made it to my page limit for today. I’ll probably write some more tomorrow as I will probably have some stuff to talk about from our meeting tonight, as usual. See you all around. Love you all.