upon abandoning a sinking ship...

okay so maybe not sinking....

everything in my life is about waiting right now. waiting and balance.

recently, day after day, i worried and wasted away, wondering what to do about money and my car, and pining away for friends and family. as if july 30th would be the end of my life.

a lot of things have potentially been the end of my life. but if there's one thing god has revealed to me, and hammered into my brain really, it's that time will always pass.

the test will happen, whether you are there to take it or not. and you will not die if you do not take the test. or if you do and you do not do well, the time will pass. you might not graduate on time, but you will not die.

your would-have-been wedding date will come and go. you will or will not get married. and you will not die. either way.

on thursday i will move to bolivia. i will come back to visit no earlier than december. i might be in bolivia for the majority of the next 2 years. and even if i die, it will not be because i moved to bolivia. it will probably be chagas from beetle poop. (is it wrong to laugh when i write that? :) )

these are things i want you (and myself) to know.

i will miss you dreadfully from time to time, and cry when i look at your pictures. i will freak out when i don't hear any english around me for days at a time, and stop speaking altogether for a while. i will take the wrong trufi, be late for important meetings, and screw up paperwork. i will hide in my bed some days because i can't take one more moment of feeling like a walking freak show with my red hair, pale skin, and "evil blue eyes." i will forget things that i swore to remember, i will get sick and want my mom. and it is all but guaranteed that i will disappoint others and myself. but that's definitely not all...

i will make an impression on someone's life that changes the way they see god and his love. i will wait faithfully for provision and peace in all decisions i make. i will have a positive impact on the people i do business with, which will cause them to reevaluate the way they treat others in business situations for the rest of their lives. i will live with the most integrity and honesty that i can manage as a flawed human, and carry truth, love, and forgiveness to ridiculous lengths. i will learn to see what others see, what god sees, when i look at myself, and struggle daily to understand the glorious responsibility it is to be a human entrusted with so much, and so incapable of accomplishing it alone.

every week i'll write a blog post. not sure what day yet, but it will be more scheduled than it has been in the past for sure. keep checking on me. i can't wait to show you the things around me with my words.

and please think of me. at shows where i would have sat in the front and cheered you on. or where i would have been sitting on stage at the piano, singing and feeling at home. and in church with my eyes closed and my shoes off, waiting for a breath of the spirit. at your house, washing your dishes, sleeping on your couch. hugging your kids and cheering them on for going potty. teaching from john. reading bridal and garden magazines while i wait for you in barnes and noble. i'll always be there. you just won't see me :)

you guys are my world. you are the fruits of the gifts god has given me. and i know you believe me when i say that i love each of you so individually.

peace.

they were once at peace

at 5 o'clock this morning i was awake.
i will leave it up to you to decide whether it was awake again or awake still.

i sat barefoot and cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor in front of the big picture window with all the lights left off. the only illumination was that of the moon shining on my face, legs, and arms, and in a pool around me made by the open drapes. i sat there in my black dress, staring past the colored glass vases on the floor sill, watching the river rolling and tossing with the breeze. everything was completely quiet and for a moment there was not one distraction in the world as far as i could see or experience.

whatever it is that one claims to be thinking at a time like this, i have come to recognize the distinct absence of anything concrete. the mind drifts and tosses like the water. sort of bleeding from thought pool to thought pool, often with strong undercurrents of connection between them. my undercurrent last night was the idea of misapprehension.

i've been reading this beautiful book by the current dalai lama (one of the best and greatest humans currently residing on this earth, in my humble opinion), exploring the origins and outcomes of negative and positive emotion. it seems that misapprehension (ignorance, misunderstanding, unnecessary exaggeration) is what causes a positive (or neutral) emotion to become negative. to take this a bit further and give a practical example, our misapprehension of another person's motives and thoughts can lead to vastly unpleasant situations and heaps of negative emotion. gross.

i've admittedly misapprehended much in my life. in fact, i am usually pinning my ideas on others of how they are feeling and what they are thinking. and as i sat there on the floor in the darkest of dark, i waited for the water to show me why i do what i do. i don't know what i thought i would see. but not much else in life has caused me more trouble than my inability to see things as they really are.

i think my lama is right when he says that the key to controlling negative emotion is understanding the discrepancies between who we think we are and who we really are. i truly believe that embracing as much reality as we can grasp and constantly remembering our inherent misapprehension of the intricacies of others' hearts and minds can free us from the recurrence of these situations that so often derail us.

what did i see in the water? the moon. and a little bit of bittersweet sadness that life isn't always what we want it to be. things and people pass. money and time run out. our hearts are handed back to us, sometimes a little worse for the wear.

but at the base of all of it, we have a strong and abiding undercurrent.

hope.

new ends. new beginnings. unseen and unforeseen blessings.

maybe i'll see you at 5 o'clock.