:: August 7 ::

So I'm somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, about an hour from Taipei, flanked by two of the greatest, also most fantastically bored, nieces. I love these kids. Even when Ellise doesn't stop asking questions and Kaela says she needs to go potty in ten minute intervals (and doesn't -- she just wants to walk down the aisle).

Ellise has taken a huge interest in the safety information card in her seat pocket. I think she knows every airline procedure for a water landing, down to taking off her high-heeled shoes before sliding down the inflatable ramp.

When the girls were sleeping, I was thinking about what I'd do if the plane really did crash in the water and I was trying to save them. It just seemed so obvious that I would rather die myself than left one of them suffer or drown. I love them.

And I wondered if this is what it might feel like to have my own kids someday.

:: August 2 ::

A strange day. A goodbye sort of day. I cried at only the inappropriate moments. When it counted, I couldn't find any tears. Two people cried at me and I just stood there, helpless to conjure up the proper emotion. I am deficient.

:: niece 3 ::

Selene comes in about a week -- Selene, who is under ten pounds right now and hasn't learned to breathe yet, and will someday smile at me, maybe sing with me, be one of my favorite people. I'm ready for you, baby! Please come early so I can see you before I go to Bali!

(She didn't come early.)

:: july 31 ::

On this very last day of July, I am actually in bed with plans to sleep, and it's just after 11. I have not been getting enough sleep. I am tired, tired, tired, and ready for a vacation. Fortunately, that vacation is just 3 work days away from me. I love you, Bali. I just wish David was coming too.

Speaking of David, he is wonderful. I don't use that word lightly, either. He is my quiet in the middle of a crazy life, or my laugh when everything is going dark. He is so kind and generous and hopeful. He thinks I'm beautiful, too, says he forgets and then stares at me in wonder when he's reminded. It's really like being a princess, only instead of a whole country of devoted peasants I just have one adoring subject. He's my favorite subject, too, comes up in all sorts of odd conversations. And the magnificent part is, I don't even feel badly bringing him up. It's like I'm supposed to. (I guess I am.)

:: July 14 ::

I went to see Coldplay with Jessica, as her "adult." I love being all grown up. :)

Coldplay was as it should be -- mind-bogglingly superb, with music that everyone sings word for word and a show put together specifically to inspire awe.

I loved every second of it.

The Things I Let Slip

It isn't the usual things
which go noticed. I never
take a sick
day. I'm dressed and pressed
have three job
titles none of which quite
fits.
No, it is those other quiet
more obliging guests,
letters which sit
never ripped open.
Questions, nice ones, like how
do you do? I don't have enough
room for any
thing new.
It's the essences, the blood,
not the bones.
I'ts me that's slipped.

:: July 4 ::

Happy birthday, America! To celebrate, I decided to spend half the day working out how to get my beautiful nieces a visa to leave this blessed land. Not forever, of course. They'll be back.

:: June 30 ::

I am one the edge of crying. I feel so pressed on every single side, sides I didn't even know I had, or had forgotten about. I'm tired. I want to sleep all day. I have been going -- going, going going -- for months. Maybe years. Lansing is my only rest. David is my safest harbor. I am so grateful to be anchoring there soon.

(I love you, David.)

:: june 25 ::

Somehow, in the time it took me to blink twice, this week has come and almost gone. No one told me online summer classes would take up every millisecond of my "free" time. I'd also forgotten how much I love Vacation Bible School. I'll miss it, alot. I hope I'll be able to do things like it in Michigan. Am I really leaving? I don't understand that yet. It all feels like fiction to me. Maybe one day I'll have kids who will read this and their only existence will depend on my walking forward, with any courage I can muster, into their future. Into my future. Let's go, all of us!

:: June 15 ::

It's nighttime everywhere in America, even in Hawaii. I'm very tired, mostly from trying to fit reason into my thoughts. We all live by rules, whether or not we admit to them. Movies are entertaining because people in them do more than just entertain the thought -- they act on them. Tonight, I am not acting on about 7 different very interesting scenarios. I'm in a queen-sized bed with polka dotted sheets. There is no theme music. There will be no credits. And thank goodness -- I don't know who I'd blame for all this normal.

:: baccalaureate ::

I'm sitting in a baccalaureate, looking at the backs of high school heads. They're all walking through what I did nine years ago, but I feel like we're walking together. The winds of change are blowing -- they're tousling my hair. And it might not be my day, but it's my graduation too. I'm leaving so may things behind, learning to live without alot I thought I needed, learning to stand on steadier legs. I am ready for what comes. I am just ready, inside.

"History will look favorably upon me,
for I intend to write it. " Winston Churchill

:: May 31 ::

"Quit running away and chase your dreams -- "

I feel like that's what I'm taking the risk to do. I need to write. I need to start blogging again. Not only big things. Boring things. Silly things. Any things. They're all my life, and my life is valuable.

I think school has pushed alot of things out of the way. I have lost a few things, and I want them back. They are:
- writing poetry
- blogging
- living in a clean room
- hanging out with friends with no time limits
- "Take care of yourself, take care of each other, take care of this place."
- writing letters
- sitting in the sun
- loving David better

:: May 27 ::

I'm finished with Anatomy & Physiology -- just like that. Two little tests and I'm free. I'm a little shaken by the speed of life lately. I haven't had my seat belt on. God, I need you. I am so tired.

:: content ::

I always thought when I was single that I would be content once I was in a relationship. Not surprisingly, I have found a great many things to make me discontent even in these last blissful months. I never would have accepted that before, but now I think I was just masking a different issue. I thought was completely happy except. I didn't have the one little thing that would make everything else glow.

Sadly, there is a deeper problem at work -- a heart unwilling to just be. And see, that's the real problem. I am almost content, but. And that does not go away. In fact, it can be worse in a relationship because there are now two people to cause problems, to steal my fragile happiness.

:: butterflies ::

I don't live in a constant state of butterflies, but when they come, I love them.

:: May 1 ::

Tonight a strange wind is blowing, quite literally. There's something about the dark that doesn't settle well -- I've always wondered why a perfect world needed night. I suppose a perfect world could enjoy it best, with all its glory and none of its worry.

:: March 15, again ::

Somehow I ended up in an "economy plus" seat on this United Airlines flight. I'm not fancy so this is maybe the first time that's ever happened and that by no special doing of my own. So there's extra leg room. And as compensation for my good fortune in last-minute ticket purchasing, I also happen to be seated by the largest human I've ever shared company with in an airplane. So Fate, we're even. Thanks.

:: March 15 ::

The ides of March. Yesterday was pi day, 3.14, which was also David's 30th birthday. And the day before that was the day he asked me to marry him. It's been a big weekend.

And you would think I would write. Normally I write out of overflow. Either that or out of absence. This weekend has been both of those extremes. I suppose maybe they've balanced each other out. It hasn't felt like balance, though. It's felt like crying, slow-dancing, shaking, hoping, praying, praying, praying.

Friday. It was Friday the 13th, actually, a really dark day. I was at Uncle Max & Aunt Carolyn's in Detroit. David was in Lansing, studying. He took his exam, and by the time he had come to pick me up there was an email sitting quietly in his inbox, waiting to punch us in the stomach.

He didn't pass. Three little words. Three terrifying little words. What does this mean? We knew before he took it that failing could mean the end of medical school. But he wasn't going to fail -- he was going to study and do really well. I was almost comfortable. I was trying to believe I wasn't nervous.

But he didn't pass. So we walked around all day, doing menial things together, holding hands. We bought a cushion for his papasan. And a lampshade. We went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic. After the sun set, he told me there was a little surprise for me at his house. I was afraid he might be planning to propose. That, honestly, was the very worst part. I hated that I was scared about that. It's just that I was scared in general. A lifetime commitment is frightening all on its own, partly for the shadowy, nameless hardships waiting to be shared. But when those hardships have a name, when that name is Today, then it makes the idea of life sound like a bitter pill.

So I spent the whole time mulling it over. Am I ready to sign my name to his insecurities and imperfections and -- yes -- failures? Do I want to be here tomorrow? In a hundred tomorrows? Am I strong enough for this?

Anyway, at the end of the movie, I started crying, but it actually felt like sunshine breaking through the clouds. I had been praying all day, remember walking into a bathroom that day thinking -- what really matters in a relationship? What does Jesus' heart value? God, can you please make me like You?

So in tears but with great sincerity I told my broken boyfriend: you're going to lose alot more and win alot more in life, but I know I want to be there for it all. I do.

(And it's true.)

So I suppose I said yes before he could get on his knee and ask the question.

:: new post ::

There. I did it. I pushed "new post," and with that I'm back in this relationship. It's a tricky thing we're doing here, me trusting nameless yous with things I might not be brave enough to bring up even over dinner. But that's the beauty of it, I suppose.

It's not that I don't want you to know what's been going on. Maybe. I mean, I didn't consciously stop writing here. There are just some places I've been that I wasn't sure I could take you to. Life is safe in retrospect, though, so I've decided we should have coffee and catch up. And by that I mean, I'm going through my journal to find the signposts that lead us back to today.

:: ok ::

Feeling much better today, although wishing so much weren't based on "feeling." I have been a smorgasbord of emotions, gorging myself on each one. Pity me, I am alone and friendless. Kiss me, I am your love. Go away, I need to be alone. Help me, I am a wreck.

Even I can't analyze this properly. Even I am confused. I am simply grateful that: today, I feel happy for the first time all week. And even though I don't know quite why, today that is enough.

:: sick ::

As convenient as it is to spend every waking moment with David, I need to create space. I was just thinking about being apart, about the intense longing that constructs and the monuments we make of being Away.

But I haven't been away at all. Apart from a few weekend trips -- blissful separations -- it has been all David, all day. I think I'm love-sick, but in the worst kind of way. I'm all sticky and drenched and feeling ridiculously empty. Which makes everything else feel awful too. It's like clouds covering over the sun. One minute I'm fine, the next it's a storm I'm too afraid to put a name to. I'm thinking thoughts no bride-to-be ought to, and not the naughty kind, the turning and running kind. I start to feel trapped, though I know well that I'm not. And I feel lost, swamped in things To Do, but none of it matters if the things I feel are all wrong. I'm wrecked.

And he, careful, constant Heart, wants to repair me with scripture, or with the power we hold to make the right choices. Well, the only best decision I could have made today would've been to find a little breathing room. It's too late now; I'm suffocated.

And the worst part is, it hurts David to see it. I wish I could spare him of that -- I do. (I love you, David.)