Thoughts on turning thirty

Photo by Robin Robokow

Today is my thirtieth birthday.

Can I tell you how excited I am? I've been waiting several years now for this, so that when people inevitably ask me if I'm in high school, or say I'm too young to be a pastor or drink or be married or have five years' job experience--I can retort with I'm thirty, which is a lot more of a zinger than I'm twenty-nine.

At three I tried to hop on a Paris subway car by myself; at sixteen I begged to be able to drive myself to my own appointments. Ever since, I've always been pushing for more independence and responsibility. I've dealt with obstacles and maybe embarrassment when I feel people question me about whether I'm competent to handle certain tasks. I've never found a way to graciously respond when people take me for an amateur in a place where I'm in charge. And now I'm thirty. Surely that's worth some respect.

There's more to it, of course.

I like the thought of getting older, maybe wiser. I look forward to the days when, God-willing, I'm forty or fifty or sixty or seventy. It might be nice to feel settled somewhere, or to hold a job for more than three years, or to be relieved of the pressure of representing to everyone the future generation. It might be nice to sit on a porch of a home I've lived in for ten years. It might be nice to stop worrying about who I'm going to be, and relax into who I am already.

In a society that prizes the novelty of youth, I'm not concerned about becoming boring or irrelevant. If ever someone inspires me to think "I want to be like her," it's usually a woman whose hair has begun to gray. She is usually thoughtful about her own experiences, the painful and the beautiful. She has a sense of connectedness to all the people she has known, and they have each made her who she is. She carries an inner silence that can only come from years of practice.

*

Many of my friends are sad to be hitting this milestone. Thirty, to someone still trying to find a career or just a stable job, may seem daunting, like a deadline she never knew until it had passed. Thirty to a single woman may bring fear of loneliness, of being forgotten by friends, of never finding the "right" person. That's real fear and real pain, and I can't pretend to speak to that.

But I have regrets, too, leaving my twenties.

I can go back to Tanzania one day, and maybe even move or work in East Africa again, which will be its own adventure. But I can't go back to the free and weightless person I was there. I can visit friends and see the homes they own and their pets and children, which is a new kind of joy. But I can't be a roommate again in the group house with a garden and potluck dinners and parties full of laughter. I can't be a young college grad who could take a job in any city, move to be near friends on a whim. There may be new choirs or a book clubs or yoga classes. But I have less leisure to play piano or join an intramural soccer team. And it's hard to imagine now that I'll ever spend a season working on an organic farm learning to grow vegetables, or get a degree in creative writing or counseling or music.

The world is no longer quite all ahead of me. Trajectories are set in motion, and mostly that is joy. But, too, moving forward always means leaving something behind.

*

This season brings constant reminders of mortality. The fragility of babies in the womb, the sudden death of a healthy adult at 35 or 60. As much as I may speak with bravado and whitewashed idealism about the wisdom of the old, I am standing right here in the middle of the messiness of it all, mourning those I have lost, mourning those others have lost. My own body joins the crowd of evidence. Two of my teeth are literally falling out. My joints are getting weak. My body is less resilient after red-eye flights than it once was.

Two weeks ago a cross was made on my forehead, the words spoken over me, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." And this is always true, and perhaps every year it becomes more true. My mortality is not something I fear, exactly. Except that in the moments in which I believe I am about to die--moments on highways, or moments of walking alone in the dark, or moments suspended in the air as I fly off the front of my bike--I am struck with a panic that I have not loved as I might, I have not made peace with all, I have left too many messes on my floor and broken pieces in my journey.

So getting older is as treacherous as it is beguiling, bringing the fear of things that have not yet been and may never be.

But mortality is also invitational. Why not stop pretending, learn to be transparent to each other and to God? Why not speak what we really feel? The liminal moments, the fearful moments, the vulnerable moments are the ones that make me put aside the homework and shake off anxiety about trivial matters and embrace all that is beautiful and holy and gift.

*

In the end the truth, I think, is that whether you're hankering to be older, like me, or longing for the days gone by when the world was spread before you and your life plan had not yet been derailed...it's not about age at all, really.

What I mean is that I think perhaps the challenge given to us all is how to love the very ground we are resting our feet on at this moment. Contentment does come from being seventy and having achieved it all, but from learning the art of gratitude. Respect does not come to me from a snarky I'm thirty I throw our to the world, but from being grounded and centered no matter how people see me. Inner silence won't suddenly appear at seventy if I don't cultivate it now.

So today I am going to hug a friend, and eat fresh food, and call my mom, and say a prayer. Today I am going to volunteer at a food pantry and study for a midterm. I am going to love this day that has been given, add my best to it, and try not to put my hope in the number that has been assigned to it.

But just in case you were wondering...that number is thirty.

Don't worry: Letters to myself

Most of the advice I'd give my younger self in hindsight begins with, Don't worry. 

Photo by bekasinne

A note for a self-confident third-grader:

Don't worry. Yes, a mom down the street said fourth grade was hard. So I understand why you asked your mom if she would home school you next year if it's all too much for you.

But you are more than capable of the challenge, dear one. And you won't be alone--you'll be taking on long division with the help of all your friends. And with the help of your parents, who believe in you. You know that, don't you? They believe in you, and they will believe in you if you get a B, and they will believe in you if you decide, one day, to quit piano or soccer or even church, and that believing in you will cover over a multitude of hurt.

So you see, there's nothing to fear.

*
A note for a ninth grader learning to fail:

Don't worry. Oh dear Katie, what a year it's been--your first bitter tastes of failure, your first experiences of un-belonging. I know how badly you wanted to be in the musical. The exhilaration of being on stage in middle school--you loved it perhaps even more than anything you'd ever done. But you will get the chance to be on stage again, and you will love other things even more than this.

And it doesn't end there--I know what disappointment you feel at not making the chamber choir. The first time you heard them sing, you knew you'd been waiting all your life to get into that group. But wait another year, it's okay. The trade-off will be deep, life-long friendships and the chance to lead your own singing group and the kinds of experiences that will stay with you for life.

And yes, dear awkward soul, you are fifteen and you have braces and frizzy hair and your sense of humor hasn't blossomed, and yet you still long for their approval. It feels utterly humiliating to stand at your locker by yourself in the morning before class, pretending to be occupied, as all the groups of laughing blondes wander by. But oh, if only you knew the depth of the empathy and compassion growing up in you right now. For the rest of your life you will always notice the girl standing on the wall, you will always feel the pain of the lonely. And though you couldn't possibly imagine it now, you will always stay in touch with the close friends you will make in these halls.

*
A note for a college sophomore, amidst the collapse of all her certainties:

Don't worry. Don't worry about going to a "third-world" country or about your first relationship or about not having a five-year plan. I know, dear Katie, that these things are not really what you're scared of. The truth is you're scared that something within you is changing. You're scared that you're losing all that has been your foundation--your God, your habits, your identity.

Listen: you are not losing anything that won't be replaced one hundred fold. 

You will lose some convictions, some people, some of yourself. It will hurt. It is okay to mourn. But here's the thing: God is not going to leave you. In fact, in all of this you will find God in a different and more beautiful way than ever before, a way that opens up possibilities you never dreamed of.

*
A note for a twenty-something planner without a plan:

Don't worry. You simply don't have to have it all figured out now. Oh, how funny it is to think of you and your dear roommate staying up late trading worries. Yours is career--shouldn't a twenty-four year old have a plan by now?!--and hers is relationship--shouldn't a twenty-four year old have met the right man by now?!

The answer, of course, is no. In six years you still won't have it figured out, but you will have realized that the journey has taught you more than a plan could ever have done. When you get to graduate school, eventually, you will be so glad you didn't know yet what you wanted and studied English in college. You will be so glad you didn't know yet what you wanted and joined Americorps and encountered the gritty beautiful slow-paced DC and learned the hard way how to work on a team. You will be so glad you had those late nights trading worries with people who will be forever friends.

*
A note for today.

Don't worry. First of all, you're doing great. In fact, can you stop doing great for a moment and enjoy life a little? You may not know exactly what's coming with balancing two careers and a marriage and the hope of children and community and so much more--let tomorrow worry about itself. Aren't you having fun? You love studying languages and writing sermons and giving hugs in the handshake line at church to the women whose pain has been told you over coffee.

Sure, you are in this place of leaving behind the freedoms of young adulthood. Sure, you are re-figuring your friendships and practices and hobbies. Sure, you are grieving what it means to settle somewhere, which is also not to settle somewhere else. Sure, you are realizing that to embrace church and prison work is also not to embrace farming and piano-teaching and other dreams you once had. And you are always, always afraid of failing at the things you for which you are responsible.

But look back on it all, dearest Katie. Have you really ever had a failure you didn't learn from? Have you ever really been alone in your questions? Have your musings and wandering uncertainties ever really led you somewhere where blessing was not to be found?

In hindsight the memory is always clear, that you have been accompanied in all your paths, whether you attuned yourself or not, by the Spirit of the living God.

So read backwards. The memory is now. Just sit and watch the snow awhile.

A few things I don't normally tell you

Photo by Nelo Hotsuma

I get irrationally anxious in the passenger seat. Maybe it's new in the last couple years, or maybe it’s that now we live in a more congested area. It’s dark and we’re in the car somewhere between Washington and Richmond when I find myself yelling every few seconds, “watch out!” begging my husband to slow down or put two hands on the wheel or change lanes to get away from the Jersey wall or a truck. My chest is too tight to relax, even though the reason my husband is driving is because I was getting sleepy. I recognize that I’m a little crazy but I can’t seem to stop wincing with every curve in the road. "You need help," my husband says. "I don't want you to have a heart attack."

I get angry for minuscule reasons, often related to wasted time, money, or energy. Late to meet my family for lunch, I am driving around the block for thirty minutes looking for a parking spot and I begin to seethe. I finally park, and as I walk the block to the restaurant, I try to reason with myself. It's not my husband or parents' fault, so I should forget about it and just enjoy the rest of the time we have. When I enter the restaurant and find out what they ordered for me, it is one more unpleasant change I can't handle. I yell and berate and make myself a complete fool, hating myself as it happens. I recognize that I’m a little crazy but it’s too late for me to back down. A couple days later, my dad calls to talk to me about my behavior. I'm 29 and my dad is concerned about my behavior; I know I need help.

As an early step in the process of becoming a Presbyterian pastor, I have to go to Charlotte for a 2-day psychological evaluation: the first day for testing, the second day for interview and results with a psychologist. The first day consists of hundreds of questions about voices in my head, how much I yell, if I ever want to break things, how's my sex life, how often I feel depressed, whether spiders make me anxious, do I obsess about details, am I mostly happy or mostly sad or mostly crazy. After it is over, I am panicking. I am sure I am going to be found out, I am going to fail, they are going to tell me I belong in therapy, not ministry. But the interview the next morning makes me feel like a normal person again, and two weeks later I get the results: Ms. Ross presented as a pleasant, engaged young person who is very interested in the evaluation process. She took notes and asked questions, appearing open to feedback and suggestions for growth. 

I think maybe we are all a little crazy, all a little wounded or anxious or neurotic or just sad (which is not to undermine clinical mental health problems that are very serious for some people, but simply to say no one is perfectly normal). I think maybe the best thing I can give to my future ministry is to stop pretending to be put together, stop pretending I can handle my anxiety and anger since I'm a well-balanced person who usually knows how to keep a lid on it, stop getting by with being a pleasant and engaged young person and learn instead how to be a whole and honest one.

So this is what I am going to try. This is my version of New Year’s resolution—or maybe just the hope of someone who has become tired of getting by. And since I’ve learned that abstract aspirations never get me too far, I’m taking three concrete steps.

1)  This semester, I'm joining a small group of women who meet weekly to share their spiritual lives, and unlike the first time I tried to join this group, I'm going to prioritize it over school and work. Because these women just might become the kind of friends who can help me be real and whole.

2) I've signed up for a writing group at school which will help me to write down the truth, to face the feelings I need to process, at least once a week. Because I need help and accountability in confronting the truest things about myself.

3)  I am lucky to have access to counseling through school, included in my tuition, so I am going to try meeting with a counselor this spring. Because you don’t have to be in acute crisis to benefit from therapy, because I never want to be too proud to seek help, because it just might help me learn to be more centered and whole.

I tell you all this, I suppose, because I have a penchant for oversharing my flaws (though some of you, surely, are not surprised at these anecdotes). Or I tell you all this because I suspect most people think they're awful, at some point, and it might do some folks good to hear they're not the only ones. Or perhaps I tell you all this because if I write it on the internet, I have to follow through. 

And also: maybe you too have been getting by and maybe you want to take a concrete step towards being whole and maybe we can walk that journey together.

Long-distance marriage

Photo by David Cea

We are in transition. Neither of us are living in our apartment this summer. We are packing suitcases or boxes and running around the state and shaking new hands.

We are each beginning our education. I am preaching on Sundays and he is presenting on Mondays. My introduction comes in backyard barbecues and small-town parades and nursing home hallways. His is an immersion into finance and spreadsheets and marketing yourself. He sleeps in a tiny sublet room.

His new friends at business school want to meet me. They wonder if I really exist. My church members often forget I’m married, or else they never knew, because he’s only been to church  with me twice.

We are not accompanying each other on trips this summer. I flew alone to a wedding in Minnesota and he will go to Miami; he has been home to his family and I will go to mine in a few weeks.

He is in a minor accident and he goes out of the country the next day and I drive back to our apartment to deal with the insurance and get the car in the body shop. He comes back from his travels and the car is still not ready and I drive out to help and we have a slumber party on sleeping bags in the living room because the bedding is already packed.

We are both busy, and we don’t begrudge each other this fact.

People raise their eyebrows when I describe it all, and they lament his absence or ask me if I miss him. “Well,” I tease, “to tell the truth it’s kinda nice.” That isn’t entirely untrue; I am a happy introvert caught up in the introspective beginning of a new journey. I am also happy that we are both encountering new life.

There is an open-heartedness that has struck me somehow this North Carolina summer, leaking deep gladness into my listening and playing and being. I feel it is leaking into marriage, too, or at least for this I pray.

This week, we both drive three hours round-trip to meet for a dinner of Vietnamese pho, to sit in a restaurant for two hours and talk. There is so much to say and listen and we look in each other’s eyes and keep talking when the waiter comes to refill the water and I think it is almost like a first date, getting to know each other again.

The intimacy beneath the conversation betrays it is not a first date. We have now what’s almost our own language. We have now seven years’ shared experiences to draw from, so that when I say a friend’s name, he feels and knows all the story in that one word; when he says “too sad,” we are both lamenting Gaza.

We have now something else, too, something remarkably strong and new: we have now the comfort and security and affirmation of nearly two years of marriage, two years of resting in the knowledge that this is how it will be, till death. I am only slightly surprised to notice this, that the last two years have blunted our sharp edges and cleared our eyes of a little debris. In retrospect, our clouded vision and sharp edges of two years ago stand in stark contrast to what we are today. I find we have been sewn together stitch by stitch. We are fitfully on our way to becoming one flesh.

This is yet another confirmation that my time has not been wasted. All this while, we have been unknowingly going about the work of marriage. I am not afraid of the next challenge.

So yes, church people, and family, and old friends and new friends, I do miss him.

But long-distance marriage this summer is kind of nice. It helps me see how much we have become and are becoming and will become.

Stay.

The two-hundred-fifty-day sleepover. That was what my roommate and I decided we’d call our memoir of the first year of college. We were giddy with the way our January term—a snowy four weeks of philosophy class and hot chocolate—had become a revolving slumber party of good friends in our room.

College seemed to stretch out before us, an endless stream of inside jokes and birthday surprises and silly hi-lighter wars and snowy cuddle-fests and long conversations late into the night.

The RA had even come once to talk to us about a complaint of being too noisy late at night. We were delighted. We—who had never quite hit our stride in high school—now being singled out as too friendly, too popular, too happy! We had finally found a group of people who wanted to sit around laughing to tears and examining the meaning of life, heaven and earth, and how to love the poor.

What I didn’t consider then was that this kind of intimacy will always lead to pain. When we come to know and trust each other, we are bound to hurt each other, and to hurt for each other.

It was just around the corner.

*

There were times, a couple years later, where friends at home or on study abroad would hear about what we’d been through together—convoluted romances, co-dependency, deep-cutting blows, more gulping tears than I ever thought possible—and would wonder why we were all still friends.

I confess there were times I wondered too.

I lost sleep; I withdrew; I did some of the most insensitive and selfish things I’ve ever done; I learned how cruel words could be. But I never really considered walking away from those people. They never walked away from me.

Because that’s not what friends do. Friends stay.

*

I have written about the lonely first year of my marriage. The hopeful second year. And it strikes me that though I don’t know at all what is coming around the corner, that is okay.

I know what it is to stay; I know what it is to have someone stay for me.

Marriage is just that, with a little more kissing and maybe some extra diapers.

 *

The two-hundred-fifty-day sleepover wasn’t the first time, and won’t be the last, that friendship hurts.

My wounds taught me how to hold back and isolate, but then slowly they taught me how to love again. How to forgive and be forgiven, how to have grace for myself. How sharing too much is a better mistake than not sharing at all. How you are forever connected once you’ve wrecked a ship together.

And if we hadn’t all somehow stuck it out (which was a grace) I would not get the privilege of flying across the country a couple times a year to attend a wedding or a party or just to sit in someone’s basement at 2 am Central time, bleary-eyed with sleep but not caring, because I only want to sit there, to keep listening, keep sharing, keep staying.

The freshman fifteen and the art of imagining other people

Photo by Jennie Faber

The girl who wrote the freshman-fifteen “contract” penned it on colored paper in swirly writing. The rest of us sat around the dorm room and gave suggestions. Mainly our goal was to limit intake of the tempting cafeteria treats: two desserts per week at maximum seemed reasonable. We discussed whether a bowl of sugary cereal at night was permissible, and whether the morning muffins should be considered cupcakes. We made silly exceptions for having just finished a paper or being on your period. We composed the whole thing in awkwardly pretentious language, and called the freshman fifteen something like the “score less five of our inaugural year.”

I was giggling. We were in our second week of college, and I was already beginning to feel that I had friends. The freshman fifteen was of no major concern to me—I viewed myself as thin enough and had somehow made it through high school without much insecurity regarding my body. The whole affair, for me, was a light-hearted attempt to forge sisterhood with those girls on my hall.

It was only later, much later, that I looked back in regret, realizing how some of those present struggled with disordered eating habits or body image issues. They must have felt so self-conscious. How silly and insensitive it was to joke about something that weighs so heavily on many.

*

I try to be more aware, now. When I speak, I consider the possible life stories of those in the room.

On mother’s day, for example, there may be someone present who is estranged from her mother, or someone who just lost hers, or someone who has been trying for years to have a child, or someone who was too young when she became a mother.

In any party or church lobby gab session, there may be someone in the circle who is an alcoholic, or someone whose brother committed suicide, or someone who does poorly in school, or someone whose child/uncle/best friend is gay, or someone who can’t afford the vacations everyone else is bragging about.

Being aware and sensitive doesn’t mean being unwilling to engage controversial topics directly and honestly. I am happy to take the time to sit down and talk about my experiences or my political or religious views. I am happy to lay it all out and be challenged.

But I try not to make assumptions. I avoid off-handed comments that could hurt someone. I don’t make a “your mom” joke when there might be someone without a mother. I don’t complain about gaining weight when there might be someone around with an eating disorder or a thyroid condition. I skip the snarky comments about the military when there might be someone around whose child is in a combat zone.

I fail half the time, of course, and put my foot in my mouth.

After all, there is no end to the lists we might make, the possible life experiences held compositely by our circle of acquaintances. I can’t walk around on tiptoes all the time, second-guessing my every remark.

But I can carry language delicately, knowing it is both an artist’s tool and a sometimes weapon. I can speak plainly and with authenticity. I can avoid sarcasm and flippancy. And I can continue listening to people’s stories, because as I listen, the stories slowly lodge in my heart, and I begin to imagine what it would be like to be someone besides myself. I grow in awareness and empathy and love.

Digging deeper

Photo by ScaarAT

During my senior year of college, I wrote a short story about a twenty-something wanderer trying to come to terms with losing his faith and disappointing his missionary father. In the last scene, he had a mystical experience in a church building and decided to go home.

My professor read it and told me to chop the last two pages. “I don’t buy the ending,” she said simply.

My stomach churned. I was reeling from my own crisis of faith; I needed to believe that the world still operated with logic and meaning, with a pattern of redemption. If I couldn’t write this into a story, did I really believe it?

“If I just leave it hanging, the story will be so depressing,” I protested.

“Life is depressing,” she answered.

With her help, I wrote a second draft, and a third, and a fourth, because I couldn’t just leave the story bleak—I needed to scratch my way toward a real experience of hope. In the final draft, I cut the mystical church scene, and ended instead with a subtle moment of reconnection to his childhood. My professor loved it.

*

Most of the time in life, there is no revelation in a church or on a mountain or while watching a sunset. Most of the time, our moments of redemption are only temporary, until we relapse back into the mess.

On the other hand, I believe people change. Inch by inch, and never linear. So that you barely notice until fifteen years have passed, and you are no longer the socially insecure and moderately self-righteous girl you once were.

It is hard to write this in a short story, or a blog-length piece, because you can only show an inch. The balance is tricky. One day I let the pendulum swing too far and I have shown a mile of change, and it can’t be believed. The next time, I forego any kind of change or deeper awareness, and it is like a mirror in the dark.

The art of writing redemption takes many drafts.

*

When I began my more purposeful approach to the blog last fall, I wrote many drafts. These days, I have sometimes been coming to the blank page hours before I hit the publish button. I think you know this.

It’s okay. Blogging is a discipline as much as an art, so sometimes I will publish something less inspired.

I want to dig deeper, though, to go beyond easy resolution or depressing reality, to find the seed of change and the kernel of truth beneath it all. That is what makes writing worthwhile: not the audience, not the affirmation, but that long, hard reach for hope and understanding.

I am working full-time this summer, and I don’t always have time for drafts and digging. I’d rather sacrifice quantity than quality. I won’t be writing quite as often in the coming weeks, but I will be trying to deepen my reflections: a process which is so difficult and gratifying.

With practice

The daily examen is a prayer exercise developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. I like its structure (you will see I need it) and how it engenders gratitude and openness. The following is a composite of a few weeks of not-exactly-daily-but-making-a-run-at-it prayer during my summer pastoral internship.

i. Become aware of the presence of God.

You are here, God. Always. If I am a success or a failure. If I remember the kid's name or not. If I sit in a circle of belonging or pace the hall crying. You are here.

(I need to take my medicine before bed. I should definitely set two alarms. Oh no, my phone is dead, I better go plug it in to use as a backup alarm. Why couldn’t I get up this morning? Okay, where was I?)

ii. Review the day with gratitude. Pay attention to the senses.

I woke feeling rested. (Well, I overslept, wasted time, rushed into my meeting late.)

I ate farm-fresh eggs, strawberry preserves, kale chips and watermelon. (I ate half a loaf of chocolate pumpkin bread. I have no restraint. I don’t exercise much here; I feel lazy. I am not treating my body well. But I digress.)

(Why is it so hard to remember my day? I’m not living mindfully and prayerfully into each moment. Social media is destroying my brain. Maybe I should cut myself off. But I have put so much work into my blog!)

Oh! I had a lovely dinner with someone from church. I am grateful for simple hospitality.

I got wonderful news from a dear friend. (I got sad news from another. I haven’t reached out enough.)

iii. Pay attention to your emotions. What is God saying through your anger, or boredom, or contentment?

On my visit to the shut-ins, I felt compassion, empathy. Caring for the outsiders is a good place for me. Maybe all we need to become more loving is to seek out places where love is needed.

Why do I feel anxious and unfocused? I am in transition, but you are with me. You will help me take each step when it is time. Maybe if I were exercising, it would help relieve some worry. (For that, I’d have to get up earlier, though.) Or maybe I should make a to-do list each morning to better organize my day.

But these are self-help tactics. Prayer isn’t self-help. What do you want to say to me, God?

Oh. 

Prayer.

This is why I need to pray, to start and end my day in silence. I worry less when I ground myself in you. 

When I know I am loved and gifted and meant for something beautiful.

Wow.

Good point.

Thanks.

iv. Look toward tomorrow.

I will pray again tomorrow. My prayer will continue to be interrupted by unrelated, sometimes destructive thoughts. But with practice, I can feel myself being changed. (Very slowly. Maybe.)

Packing my bags

Photo by Natasha Mileshina

I am going to be late for my flight to Ethiopia. I am standing in the hallway, bags in hand. The others are not ready, so I follow them into their rooms, nagging. "Let's go, let's go," I say. "We're going to miss the flight if we don't leave soon."

I am not entirely sure why I am going to Ethiopia. I haven't thought beyond making the flight.

We reach the airport, make it in the terminal, but my friends are lagging behind, and I press them again. "We need to get to the gate!"

A man passing by brushes my suitcase, and it falls open. There is nothing inside. I've forgotten to pack.

I run back home at saber-speed. I begin throwing clothes in the suitcase. More shoes, and sandals. It will be hot there. I might need a sweater or two. I empty my underwear drawer into the suitcase. My passport! Where is my passport? I am pretty sure I will be too late, I have already missed the flight, but I have to try. I keep dashing around, filling my bag. I don't have time to think if there is something else I've forgotten. This haphazard job will have to do.

*

My alarm goes off. For a moment I'm disoriented, frenzied. Then I breathe out, relief.

There's no flight to catch, no journey, no empty suitcase. Only eggs to cook and teeth to brush and a moment to sit still on the front porch, welcoming the day.

*

This is something of a recurring dream for me: rushing to catch a bus or train or plane, running into some essential obstacle.

The empty suitcase stays with me all day. I am rushing to get to seminary in two months, and maybe in all the commotion, my bags have not been packed. Maybe I do not have the experience or gifts or skills necessary for this. Maybe I have concentrated so much on getting to seminary that I don't remember why I'm going. Maybe I'm trying to cobble a cohesive theology and a vision and a plan together last-minute, without time to breathe it in, think it through.

I have had so long to prepare. For two years I have been looking ahead to this, standing in the doorway, ready to move. But I have not picked a track, a denomination. If I don't get it all figured out within a few months, I may not finish on time. I may not be eligible for a job when I graduate.

This is something of a recurring fear for me: wanting to have it all figured out lest I miss the boat, miss my chance to have an impact, to live fully into my gifts.

But there is no flight to catch at all. It is more of a long walk. God's love and guidance are available always, unscheduled, no security lines or last call for boarding. Mercy is new every morning, and life's callings are found on a winding path, not through a narrow door at the end of a straight terminal. In the journey we are all on, we pack as we go.

It is true, I am not prepared. I am not supposed to be. I am only supposed to be open, moldable, listening to the spirit, and willing. It is true, this summer as I embark, I am receiving a healthy blast of humility. I have also stepped intentionally into the good, challenging work of reflection. I am reaching down to a depth in myself that I haven't explored for months. I am remembering wisdom and yearnings that have been dormant for some time. I am refining, being refined.

I know I am called to witness to the great Love I have known in Jesus Christ. I know I am called to learn in the Duke community. If I am seeking to live and grow into these paths, it is enough for now. I may not know exactly where I will be arriving in three years--but the truth is I won't be arriving at all, only continuing to walk and live and learn and listen.

So there is no way I can be late.

Leaving Cherokee

I never wanted to live here. I say this with much love and gratitude and apology to the people who have accepted, guided, and known me while I have been in Cherokee this beautiful year and a half. You have sustained and cared for me this whole time, and you have made it worthwhile. But it wasn’t in my plan to move here, and Cherokee was the first place I’ve ever moved without looking forward to it.

When John first mentioned his job interview for a position here, I thought it was a terrible idea. I thought it would put pressure on our first year of marriage. It did, but it also gave us a space in which to really focus on our relationship. I thought it was the wrong job for him and not worth moving for. It was the wrong job, but while we were here he found another which led him to the perfect career. I thought I would be incredibly lonely moving somewhere I knew no one and did not understand the rural, native culture. I was, and I have misunderstood and hurt some people because of it, and I am sorry for that. But I also drained away my city-life stress and ambition, and learned to listen to the birds and to write, so maybe the loneliness has had its fruit.

When John was given the official offer, I kicked and screamed and begged and asked for more time and complained to several trusted friends and mentors and appealed to my mother-in-law, pastor, anyone who might be able to talk some sense into John. I prayed and journaled profusely. Please God. Don’t make me move. Not now, not just when things are seeming to come together here in DC, not just when I feel so surrounded by love, not just when I am sensing the stirrings of a career—a calling, not just when I am going to be starting a marriage.

Despite all my begging and pleading, though, I think I knew from the moment John said he wanted to go, that we were going to go. I just needed time to accept it, to realize that I couldn’t allow myself to stand in the way of a chance for him to explore his calling.

So we moved, and at first I worked at Subway, and I felt very lonely. Then I found a job I absolutely loved (even if only part time), and slowly I began to find beauty and grace in the days as they passed, while still looking with hopeful anticipation to moving on quickly, which had been my goal from the start, because after all I knew I wanted to go to seminary at Duke.

The time is finally here. While I am itching to start my classes, and get a chance to be in ministry, and take concrete steps toward my calling, and connect with new community at Duke Divinity School, and eat Thai and Indian food, and buy organic produce—I am also surprised to find my reticence to leave.

You see, I want so badly to see my GED students through this journey, to see them pass all the tests and then give them a giant pat on the back and help them apply to college. I want to keep the habit of long runs by the creek on Saturday mornings, and then eating brunch afterwards with my running friends. I love the comfortable rhythm of socializing and introspecting, teaching and writing, that allows me to have energy to give to John and others. I have come to appreciate that my small band of friends here includes people at such different ages and life experiences, who have so generously offered me themselves. I feel something like joy in these spring blooms and the blue skies of the Smokies, and I wish I had spent more time hiking and camping and taking it all in.

I am sad to leave these things behind. I am also full of uncertainty at what is ahead.

I’m scared of re-learning and adjusting all over again with John, of new rhythms and new communities and new pressures affecting our marriage. I’m scared of the inevitable return to a busy, stressful, overexerted lifestyle, of starting all over again, of examining my faith under the microscope again, of making big decisions about our future.

And maybe I am reluctant to move forward without ever having really loved my life here—a life there were so many reasons to love—without ever really felt it was home, without having understood why I had to come here and what I was supposed to learn and whether I learned anything at all. Maybe I worry that the sometimes-aimlessness and confusion of this stint is the new standard for my life, that I have become someone who doesn’t know how to live fully and gratefully into the places and experiences in which I find myself.

I hold in my heart all of these things as I sort and pack boxes. There are days it overwhelms me.

But I believe I should act out of my love rather than my fear, which I guess means finishing well for my students, saying thank-yous and goodbyes as best I can, and trusting that the grace that has sustained me here goes on before me.

For the girl in the brewery

Photo by Ken Douglas

I wanted to say that I am happy for you, and proud of you.

You must be fourteen or fifteen. There in the bar, surrounded by college kids and young adults and your parents, you were so clearly you. The weather had just turned warm, and your wore your spring cotton dress over leggings. You didn't look out of place in a bar. You walked back and forth across the room like the ground was familiar under your sandals. You didn't overdo it either. There was no attention-seeking, just a face full of laughter. You twirled and danced and leapt as the music changed. You moved with friends, or with the music, or on your own.

You just looked yourself; you just looked free.

*

I was a tiny bit jealous.

I wish I would have been a little more like you when I was your age.

Don't get me wrong, I am mostly happy with who I was. I had a purpose--study hard and love people. I had good friends who are still my friends. I was bathed in love.

I'm glad my clothes weren't stylish by the standards of any clique. I'm glad some of them were hand-me-downs, because it gave me a heart trained on simplicity. I'm glad I was a little lonely, because it gave me eyes to look for the lonely ones. I'm glad I was always thinking, analyzing, considering, because it gave me patience and thoughtfulness and depth. I am even glad that it took me longer than most to grow into the rhythmic motions of my body (though that was not without cost) because I made friends while standing on various walls, because my mind and spirit were grounded in an firm identity by the time I learned to dance.

But looking at you, I see that I missed something, too. Something of joy, something of spontaneity and freedom.

In a world where so many girls your age are not comfortable in their own skin, you made me wistful, and glad.

So keep laughing freely, friend. Keep twirling.

One Small Change: Encountering New Neighbors [with Addie Zierman]

I am beyond honored today to be sharing a story over at Addie Zierman's blog as a part of her series, "One Small Change." Addie is an beautiful and compassionate writer, and if you haven't been on her blog or read her critically-acclaimed 2013 book, When We Were on Fire, you are missing out!

Today I'm taking a break from the women's history month project, writing about the getting to know people who are different from me, and how it has opened up new worlds. Here's how it starts:

Photo by Paul Sableman

“We’re gonna search their bags for weapons, drugs, and secular music,” my co-counselor Tanya told me as she selected one of her Christian hip hop CDs as a welcome soundtrack. “I’ve been doing it all summer so I’ll be in the cabin unpacking their bags; you’ll be outside greeting them.”

I nodded, trying to look as unalarmed as possible. I’d elected to stay this last week of summer camp because it seemed like it would be a good experience after a summer of suburban white girls. I was nineteen, and I knew I was too quiet, introverted, and sheltered to have any idea how to relate to these urban youth who were about to pull up. I would do whatever Tanya said. She’d just arrived from an inner city kids camp, plus she was urban herself, which maybe this week was a euphemism for black.

A few minutes later, the first van pulled in. I threw on a polka-dot dress and a purple wig and started jumping up and down, plastering a smile onto my face and opening my arms to these children from Richmond and DC and Pittsburgh, these children who’d seen more violence and discrimination and poverty in their lives than I’d ever seen on TV...

Read the rest over at Addie's blog.

Seeing her beautiful

On this day, I have been given an invitation. Today I open a box in my memory, dig through the clutter, and find her somewhere in the corner. I find the girl I once was, bring her out into the light. She is like a precious stone, and in the light I turn her and turn her, noting the shimmer and sparkle on each side, the light reflected in different hues, complex and deep and lovely.

I am not accustomed to seeing her this way. I rather think of her as scuffed up, gaudy, trying too hard, awkward, showy. But this month I honor myself too, and I try to see her beautiful.

Photo by TVZ Design

*

At age five, she came home from school and pronounced, “There is a writing contest and I am going to win.” She shoveled in her spaghetti at the dinner table and assured her parents, “I am the best on my soccer team.” She sang solos at church and at school without a waver in her voice.

She became student council president in sixth grade. By this time she was beginning to notice other girls getting big-chested, getting boyfriends, shaving their legs. Hers legs were still hairy and her clothes were still hand-me-downs. Her social confidence was beginning to fade. But she didn’t let it stop her. She ran for president, and she won.

That Christmas, she received from her grandmother a small wooden gavel, which was inscribed, “President Katie.” It was reason enough to declare, for the rest of that year, that she was going to be the first woman president of the United States.

I cannot deny that she has a bit of ego, a love for power. But today I look beyond it and see more in her. I see the confidence and joy and courage that comes from being loved, and being unafraid. I see independence and creativity and unselfconsciousness about sharing her gifts.

*

She lay on the floor next to a stack of Sweet Valley Twins books, with her ear pressed to the small clock radio and the volume way down. It was past her bedtime, but she had to catch the “Hot 9 at 9” which she recorded in her book almost every night, to stay up with the latest music.

Lately, though, she liked country music, the sad twangy love songs about loneliness. They were great for belting in the shower. To cover this embarrassing musical interest, she made up white lies about the CDs she was receiving for Christmas, insisting there was some Backstreet Boys and Will Smith among them.

On her school notebooks she had scribbled, “I <3 Lance Bass” in unnaturally floofy letters. When she wrote notes to stick into the vents in her friends’ lockers, she wrote her “e’s” like backwards threes because she’d noticed other girls doing it that way.

I usually see that girl and wince at how hard she tried, for how very long, to fit into a crowd. Today I notice also her longing to be relevant, her ability to observe and adapt to a culture, the real connections that she forged. I notice that some of the floofy-lettered notes were about God, some were attempts to reconcile friends, and some were written to the unpopular, overweight girl in her homeroom.

*

It was lunchtime at the high school, and she was sitting at the table, slowly picking each item out of her lunchbox, as the usual dialogue played out in her head.

- Fold your hands and pray, you can do it.

- No, it will only make them uncomfortable.

- Don’t be ashamed of your faith.

- They are going to think I’m so weird. They don’t understand.

She was in the school library at seven-thirty, showered and changed after morning swim practice. She sat with her friends at the table, studying. The Bible was in her backpack, and she willed herself to take it out—a bold witness, a display of unashamed faith. If only it was easier to be a Christian in this world. One day she drummed up her courage, and took it out of the backpack, and opened it, there on the table in full view. But of course she didn’t read it, only glanced around for ten minutes at all the other students in the library, sure they must be watching, waiting to pounce.

I know better now, that it’s not a war, that we are all really on the same side, trying to figure life out, trying to find grace in this world. The girl I was then thought this was a battle, and she wasn’t prepared to fight it. I am glad she wasn’t prepared, because maybe then she’d still be fighting, fighting when it is better to sing, and hold hands. Looking at her now, I see that despite her fears, she was singing and holding hands, and she must have done something right, because girls from that time are still some of her closest friends.

*

Today I turn her and turn her in the light. I see her and love her.

And I see also this: gratitude for the processes that formed her. For the love and opportunities that made her fearless and confident; for the family that encouraged her to notice the unpopular girl in homeroom and the hungry people in the world; for the loneliness that gave her compassion and cultivated her spirit. There are many girls who never get that love, who are never told they could be president, or who never believe it.

She is one lucky girl.

--

This post was written with inspiration from the Story Sessions prompt for international women’s day. This was a fun one to write about. You can find more stories like this or write your own over at the link-up by clicking here.

Visit my “Honoring Women’s stories” project for more stories of different women.

The grace of the ordinary

It is a mopey snow day and since it is approximately my fourth in a row, I have been withering away all day in our small apartment, failing to work up the energy to clean the house or drive to a coffee shop to write or read. I slept till eleven and I have been eating chocolate chip cookies and playing online all day.

My husband knows this, because when he comes home I am only just rising to start making spaghetti.

So later on, after another dinner-by-Netflix and a quick phone call from my friend, as we relax into our evening reading, he is surprised when I tell him.

“I am happy,” I say.

“Are you sure?” he asks after a moment. He knows it is a big thing for me to say, after the last sixteen months. He is still skeptical that I am happy with him, ever since I aired my disappointments to the whole internet.

“Yes,” I insist.

Four months ago when I wrote about our first year of marriage, when I began to air it out, I held it out in front of me and I saw that it was actually quite ordinary. I saw that we had passed through some tears and challenges and landed on our feet. People responded to the piece, and I saw that I was not alone—that it is never an easy task, making two lives one.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I tell him.

I have been giggling, for one thing. I am laughing again at the kind of jokes and stories that I once thought were funny, and then didn’t think were funny for a tearful, too-serious year. Also, I don’t lie awake thinking can-i-really-do-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life. Also, when he asks me what is wrong I talk, instead of stifling a scream and bottling the emotions I can’t even begin to understand.

“I know we still fight sometimes, but it all feels lighter.”

He is looking at me, listening, and his eyes are the same deep brown eyes that have received so much of my story, my love, my honesty, my anger, my joy.

“And I have come to love the small things about our life together.”

“You mean like watching Netflix and cooking dinner and drinking wine?”

“Smaller,” I say.

The day to day things, the moment to moment things. Kisses on the cheek. Whispers for no reason. The tone we use when we talk. Coming home together after a night out. Car trips with my feet on the dash as we discuss everything from vocal resonance to twitter culture to spiritual growth. Resting my arms on his feet as we sit at opposite ends of the couch, reading. Looking over at him and thinking, here we are.

It is almost like falling in love again. It is different than the first time, of course—not wild and limitless in a dewy meadow with stars above, not feeling like I am going to jump out of my skin with joy and possibility. More like going for a walk in the winter and then sitting by a fire, sleepy, late at night. Strong, peaceful, and warm. Safe.

I know in reality, this life we have is anything but safe. I know we are still very young, still on the very early stages of this journey. There is danger ahead: the danger of being angry or broke or sleep-deprived or isolated. The danger of wanting different things. The danger of pain or sickness or loss.

But we are building a strong foundation. I can feel it. Much of this foundation came before we got here, from the love of our family and friends, from the beauty of our meeting when we did, from the unending patience of God. And here we are, building on it day by day with tiny blocks of spaghetti and hi and what-can-i-do-for you, and I am grateful for perseverance and guidance and the grace of the ordinary—all the things that have brought us this far.

--

Today I am linking up with Kirsten Oliphant's "Not So (Small) Stories" to connect with other writers and work on craft. Click below to see more about the series or join in!

On saving the world

You are seventeen and you hear your godmother talking about her job coordinating aid to refugees, and you hear your parents talking about their new Burundian friend and the problems she faced in her homeland, and you take environmental science at school and you realize the world is bigger than you knew and that you are going to be a part of saving it.

You are nineteen and you are trying to convince your parents that there is nothing to worry about, that these protests they are talking about in Bangladesh are going to be fine, that your month-long study abroad trip is going to be safe and healthy and beautiful, that you are not going to pierce your nose out of solidarity with the Bangladeshi women like the student they read about in the brochure. Deep down, though, you are terrified, and you are terrified as you step off the plane and smell the garbage and feel the hot, thick air and see the beggars outside the gate. You are terrified when you wake up in the hotel room a few days later and read the newspaper slid under your door, which tells you that extremists in the city are bombing tourist hotels. You are terrified as you speed down the road to the village in a bus, amidst taxis and horses and rickshaws and bicycles, passing on the right and narrowly avoiding collisions.

But you reach the village, and the sun is warm and red in the sky in the evening, and the children are tugging at your shalwar kameez and following at your heels as you walk between the huts and past the mustard fields. You hold their hands and let them teach you how to say “beautiful” and “coconut” in their language as you walk, on your way to meet your farmers each day, to ask them questions about their families and fertilizers and crops and toilets.

Each night with your professors, you discuss how to save the world, and then afterwards you and your friends complain about the fact that the teachers are asking you to how to save the world, because how can you, an American student in her first trip abroad, even pretend to know? By the end of the month, though, you sit on the roof of the hostel looking out at the mustard fields, hearing the children laughing and envisioning the tears of the widow whose roof you patched. You feel like you’ve got it, the answer to all of this, which is so refreshingly simple. The answer is love, and your task of saving the world has become so clear: just love each other.

You are twenty-one and you have completely and utterly fallen in love with Africa. You are in love with the way the Swahili words roll of your tongue as you stun the locals in the minibus with your vocabulary; you are in love with your host family’s maid who has taught you the words and poured out her life story; you are in love with the rolling green hills and the familiar feel of the local market and the walking everywhere and living out of a suitcase. You are in love with the stars of the southern hemisphere and with the other American student who sits down to gaze at them with you, who will one day become your husband. You know now that saving the world is complicated and you believe that Africa has given you much more than you have given it, but you are determined to come back after you graduate.

You come back. The ground seems more dusty and your host family’s maid is living with her brother now, where you are feasted on by mosquitoes the night you stay with her, and your bubbly friend is being beaten by her husband. And you are lonely, because while it is not hard to inspire pick-up lines from every man you meet, it is incredibly hard to make friends without a built-in host family or university classes or American compatriots. But you start singing with the Maasai girls in the evenings, and you move in with a new friend, and you share the humdrum, complicated, beautiful life of a regular Tanzanian family, one that doesn’t have a maid, one that makes you share a bed and wake up in the morning to make the chai, and tag along to herd the goats.

The months are passing by and you are still lonely or bored or frustrated at times. But you are also “getting fat,” according to giggling Tanzanian women. As best you can understand it, when they say fat what they really mean is that you are glowing, that you are at home and fitting in and flourishing. Your students are starting to learn English—some of them enough to ask questions about the time zones or about how why Americans have chosen an African as their president—but really you haven’t accomplished much. It’s who you’ve become that matters. The sun is setting and you carefully take the laundry down from the clothesline and go with the children to carry water from the well, and you realize you will never be able to enter this life again, once you have left it. Even if you return, you will be older and maybe married and have a real job, and you will never again be able to blend this closely into their lives. Your heart aches as you say goodbye.

You are almost twenty-eight, and to be honest these days you find yourself forgetting whether you’re twenty-six or seven or eight, because it is all starting to blend together. You are making a difference in America now, educating high-school dropouts and planning to become a pastor. You are getting ready to go to seminary and then afterwards you will get a real full-time job. You have a kitchen full of dishes and pots and pans and closets full of papers and games and gadgets that might be useful one day. You have furniture. You feel the weight of all the stuff, how it means that you will have to rent a moving truck this summer for the first time in your life, how it holds you to the ground sometimes and makes the idea of running off to Africa seem more difficult. You dread calling your friend in Tanzania, because your Swahili has gotten terrible and you can never understand half the things she says, and yet you know every time that the gist is she is asking your for money, and you are tired of taking wads of cash to Western Union for another computer course that won’t really lead her to a job. You want to visit Africa again, most days, but the price of a plane ticket seems so high in terms of rent and grad school savings.

You wonder, sometimes, if you have lost the idealism and the energy that you once had. You wonder if you have become cynical and hardened and lazy and complacent—all those adjectives you once used to describe older people. You wonder if you are still willing to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Jesus. Some days it is like you are looking at yourself from the perspective of the nineteen-year-old you, and you barely recognize yourself.

*

In the telling of the story, you see it. You have grown, and deepened. You are wiser.

You have learned to love better, not just the beautiful, exotic people whose culture intoxicates you, but also the people who are infuriatingly similar, who frustrate and try your patience and fail to come through sometimes when you need them.  You have learned to wait, to empathize, to listen.

You have seen that there are plenty of people in your own country who are maybe even worse off than some of your friends in Africa—because they are starving not only for food but for families that aren’t so broken, for community.  You have learned that the greatest power you have to help people in Africa may be the power of your dollar, and you are trying to be more careful about the foods you eat and the companies you buy from.

You have found out more about yourself, and you have truly and deeply come to believe that it is through the path of Christian ministry that you can exercise all your gifts. You are planning to pray with people who are grateful and sit quietly with people who are grieving—but also to mobilize more support for Tanzanian girls who are being sold in marriage or Bangladeshi widows who are being conned or simple farmers all over the world who just need more rain.

You are learning how to live into that word you once pronounced as the answer to all the world’s problems; you are learning how to love.

*

Still, looking back, you miss some of the conviction you once had. The way you gave half your things away when you returned from Tanzania. The way you were ready to put everything on hold for a chance to serve abroad. The impulse you had to sacrifice your own desires for the path of service. The freedom you felt living that way.

So in honor to yourself at nineteen, you pledge to think creatively about how to do more for the world than give some pocket change to Kiva and World Vision; to write the stories of others; to keep your ears and eyes open to opportunities to love.

And you pledge to do something radical this year: one act of love that will really require you to give something up. 

The First Year

It began with a perfect wedding. We were surrounded by more love than we had ever felt. A perfect honeymoon, hiking in Montana, eating huckleberry pie, open communication, laughter.

Then we timidly began to make a home in Cherokee. We tried new recipes and carved pumpkins and played footsie and drank wine and lit candles. We discussed possibilities for our future, grad school and children and returning to Africa and the visiting the Grand Canyon.

We built a life together, a life that hasn’t always been perfect, but is real, is ours. We kept a container garden on the porch and a worm composter in the kitchen, and we learned that we would have to vacuum the fruit flies out of the worm composter daily to prevent infestation. We obsessed a little over Jack Bauer and Michael Scott and watched too much Netflix. We complained about our jobs, coffee breath, and the amount of space in the bed. We discovered that if we put dimes and nickels in the Coke machine and pressed “coin return,” it spit out quarters for laundry. John scrubbed a lot of mold out of the shower, because there is no ventilation in the bathroom. We ate burned cookies and expired chips when I worked at Subway, and a lot of farm veggies when I volunteered at the farm. We developed a two-person version of Settlers of Catan so we can play anytime we want. We spent one six-hour road trip re-telling from memory the stories of young adult novels Game of Thrones and Divergent.

It’s almost impossible to believe, the beauty we experienced in and around and beyond these little moments. We live on a riverbank and can build a fire and watch the flames flicker on the water, and when we get bored of the flames we can look up at the stars. We joined a relay team that ran 212 miles through the mountains in the spring. We hiked the Appalachian trail across the Smokies. We saw Over the Rhine and Bob Dylan in Asheville, some of our favorites. We went swimming and tubing and saw a million waterfalls and ate a million potlucks and went to a million weddings with wonderful friends and family. We won $4000 at the Casino one night (just kidding).

It has been good, and there is much to be thankful for. This is the first year.

Yet alongside the first retelling, there is another narrative weaving through it, a truth of heaviness and disappointment, which does not negate the beauty and the gifts but remains with it.

Many afternoons, I glued myself to the couch in pity, willing myself to get up and garden, run, write, or pray, wishing I had a friend here to call, wishing John wouldn’t be gone so much at the gym or watching football. Knowing that if he were home I’d stay on the couch anyway.

Many times we held on to the negative characterizations we made for each other. Un-thoughtful, unhealthy, domineering, untrusting. We wouldn’t let go of our caricatures; we intentionally lived in to them, even.

Many nights I lay in bed with tears in my eyes and a knot in my throat, refusing to let out the tears because then I’d have to explain, to be vulnerable, to dwell on unmet expectations and unfulfilled hopes. And as he lay inches from me, yet so far, still I desperately wanted him to know the depth of my loneliness.

Many opportunities were lost out of numbness. John was too tired or sick or rainy or injured to go hiking. I grew weary so that I didn’t want to look at the stars, that great expansive beautiful sky that had brought us together in the very beginning as we stared at it in a field in Africa, falling in love. That place seemed so far away.

When I told John one night I did not want to go outside and see the stars, I knew this year had changed me. In anger or defeat, I had closed myself off from the aching after beauty and after God.

After all this, there were attempts to fight back. I would go home or on a trip and return with revitalized friendships and renewed hopes for change. Only to find that as soon as I returned to a sink full of dishes and a TV blasting a show I didn’t want to be sucked into again, I would snap at John and rebuild my internal walls.

And the questions would return. Why. Why did you make me move here for a job you didn’t even like, a career you decided not to pursue. Why haven’t you been exactly what I want. Why can’t you anticipate my every need. Why are you so happy when I am so miserable.

In all this there has been relief, and dessert, and whispered conversations at night, and a tender touch to say I’m sorry. But there have been no real answers.

This, too, is the first year.

There is a third piece of this crazy puzzle. A perspective that says we are not the only people in this story, not the center of it, and not alone.

There is a ring, a promise, a grace and patience from beyond ourselves.

There are a hundred witnesses sending prayers and love our way.

There is time enough to take our disappointments and fears one by one.

There is the character and humility that this year has forged.

There is the possibility of starting new every morning.

There is a weekend away, alone, to talk it all through and set new goals and remember: that what drew us to each other is always there, buried in the brokenness but also above it, waiting to be noticed if we take the time to look for it.

There is the image of God in each of us, more subtle but deeper than the tears and fights, and that is not going anywhere no matter how long.

So as we begin another year, I promise again to never give up.

Photo by David Cea