I smile just because

Have I mentioned that I really can't wait until I live here? I'm really, really looking forward to it.

Departures & arrivals

On Tuesday, August 25, I dropped Andrew off at LAX at 4:50 in the morning. It was dark and too warm for that hour of the morning. Everything felt a little off. I said goodbye and I knew I had to trust that a lot of unknown things would turn out just fine.

Sometimes I have a hard time believing that God knows what to do. I think the wheels are going to fall off this thing we call life and that nothing will make it better. I worry at night about what impossibly bad thing is just around the corner. It's the fear of the unknown.

But here's what I have found, time and time again. The lesson I need to stop forgetting: the unknown that terrifies me so much? It usually ends up being okay. I can worry about driving in cars and catching diseases and being attacked in my empty home in the suburbs. I can stress out about riding a flying hunk of metal through the sky, but at the end of the day, I find myself somewhere good and safe. Somewhere better than I could have pictured. And that is what I must remember. That, somehow, whether I can fathom it or not, everything ends up okay. Not just here and now, but always.

Remember who you are

Some days it is easier said than done.

Other days the truth of who I am comes rushing in, comforting and terrifying in its scope.

Losing keys

Maybe, since we're made in the image of Someone better, maybe that's why we're so mysterious to each other. I've always thought it was sin, that snaky and ugly thing, that causes us to wrap ourselves in the skin of our other-selves. Our potential for evil, I figured, has to be the reason we are so capable of rendering ourselves unknowable. But what if this is not a reflection of our fallenness but of our connection to our Creator? Maybe then I should rejoice that I am layers and layers away from understanding myself or anyone else.

Yes, but I must also continue the endless pursuit.

Going vs. leaving

At least I know where you're going. Big brick buildings lined up along the Hudson. Full libraries with words you need to read, thoughts you must absorb. Every kind of person: petite, pear-shaped, freckled, Hispanic, transgender. Everybody wants you there. And I know for certain that you're ready.

But no one knows what to say about her. Carried in their arms down a long white hallway. Cold metal table, sharp ends meeting her old skin. Everybody murmuring in low voices, same faces all around the room. And heads hang low, and how do we know that she is ready?

One hundred seventy-three

Minus the hours you will be sleeping (72)
Minus the hours I will be working (12)
Minus the total hours one of us will be showering or pooping (3)

Okay, so maybe eighty-six hours, and that's being generous. Eighty-six hours left before you move 2,839 miles away.

But who's counting?

(500) or maybe (1)

She's lived here for years, but it doesn't matter. Even tonight she will take the longer way home, parking at the top of the cliff just to see the way the moon strikes such a contrast against the violet sky. Standing solitary, speaking aloud to the Made and the Maker alike. If everything's so set in stone, how did she do it? How did she slide away, make a right turn and steal a moment in this perfect place?