It takes one...

Lately, I've seen so many bad marriages. I've met a lot of women who are stuck in a rut in life, all because of one fateful bad decision to marry. Some are divorced, but have lost their youth and ability to love from fighting with their mate for years. Some are still married, but the look in their eyes even to a complete stranger in the grocery store says "I married the wrong man."

This makes the concept of marriage seem much less desirable to me. I am in a long-term relationship, learning about communication and trust. I've seen sides of my guy that irritate the heck out of me, and I know there is a lot of things I envisioned for my future mate that he will never be.

So it becomes this game for both of us. How much can I compromise? What's negotiable and what's really important? I do a lot of compromising in relationships, but I need someone who can do the same for me.

When do you say, this is where it ends for me, I'll love this person no matter what? I've seen a lot of ugly "no matter what's" go very wrong.

Love.

I could hear him smiling over the phone.


And I am totally in love with him.


(which probably sounds really pathetic...)

Get Ready, Get Set...

...And then I forgot what comes next.


The little "G" with the arrow next to it shows me all my most recent searches on Google. The letter "M" has the most. "M" for Master of Science in Human Resources Management, Master of Nursing, Master of Fund Development, Urban Planning, Education, International Health, the list keeps going.


Yes, I am googling my future.


It's what happens when you're two years out of college, in a steady relationship, and still don't know what you want to be when you grow up.

In dependence.

It's a still night, crisp and cool. Leaf nor curtain offer even a twitch, but it's not a muggy stillness like late August. A firework goes off, then a car alarm. Two people talk as they pass under my window, unaware that I can hear them. A baby cries. All the windows on the block are open, drawing in breath from the darkness. All the sounds of the city drift in on a smooth current of sound as pleasing as ocean waves.

The city is a mechanism, a human machine. I've seen its power in a the lights that turn on in the skyscrapers at sundown. And I've seen glimpses of its fragility as well, in the eyes of the people who make it strong, in their doubts and worries.

This is my second summer in Chicago, the heartland metropolis. I've lived here exactly a year and a half at the end of this week.

Looking back on expectations, I laugh like Sarah must've laughed a second time, not when God promised her Isaac and she laughed at Him, but when years later she looked back on her unbelief and subsequent journey and laughed at herself. Maybe she didn't laugh, but I can only imagine that she did.

I did not have realistic expectations. I claimed then to have none at all, but there are little expectations that go unspoken. I was going to remain single. I was going to stay only until I was ready for grad school. I wouldn't second-guess who I was, who God was, or what I was supposed to do about it all. And for all that, now I laugh.

Not a bitter or cynical laugh, just a laugh at the sureness I had that I knew what I was getting myself into when I took the big step into unknown. Of course I wasn't sure of many things, but those things were just the tip of the iceberg.

I had little concern for money. It didn't influence how I made decisions. I had little concern for friends. Not in that I did not love them, but moving away puts a huge burden on a friendship that I did not fully anticipate. Also I did not consider how difficult it could be to make new friends in a new city.

I do not regret my choices. I love this city (most of all on cool summer nights, and least of all on cold winter ones). I'm just having another moment of gazing at the stars through the smoky, post -independence day haze, and wondering if I would see them differently from another place, down a road I did not choose.

I'm just another city dweller, passing through. I came here to be independent, to live the big city life. Chicago sees plenty of these, ambitious twenty-somethings trying to reach for the stars. To do good for humanity or do good for ourselves, and to clamor the tower of success regardless. Because you never know what you could be until you try, and this place, with all its progress, invites us with open arms to be and to become. And we become this city and its proudest accomplishments. No one is really independent. Because to be great, grand, successful, and strong is to be dependent on what created you.

God created me, and I create a little part of this city to look like Him. That puts things into perspective and makes it all seem a little less overwhelming.

Sean.

My mother was right. Mothers always know these things, I suppose. She saw the way he looked at me. And I always smiled at her and said, "I know." But that was all I ever said.

He would come pick me up sometimes and we'd go to dinner, usually with friends. Or we'd go bowling. Or see a movie (he most always sat next to me...and I always enjoyed the company.) We'd hang around after church and play foosball and try to make up our minds about where to go.

He'd let me borrow his jacket when I was cold. Sometimes he'd force me to borrow it, because he'd always notice when I was cold. He'd pick me up if I needed a ride. He brought me this coin when he went to London. I still have it. I don't know what it is or where he got it. But he shyly approached me at church and gave it to me, looking as uncomfortable as I have ever seen him. We danced together 4 times at our first dance (and our mothers took a zillion pictures to commemorate the occasion... both our mothers were at our first junior high dance...how tragic that seemed at the time.)

There was one thing I could count on - he would never forget me. I could see it clear as day in his eyes. The day my dad passed away, his wordless hug is my clearest memory in a fog of confusion and unsettled misery . He stayed close to me; my every motion seemed determined his. He would jump up if I even looked like I needed something. He didn't know how to help me, but he put his heart into trying nevertheless.

The night I left for Chicago, when we sat in his car idling in my driveway and said goodbye (which even after that he walked me to the front door, because it was late). My mom was still awake, reading. She was up rather late and I am a bit old for someone to wait up for me to come home after a date...but since this was my last night at home, I didn't take trouble with it. She reminded me one more time...

"You know, he's always thought that you are a pretty special girl."

I smiled. "I know."

I wanted to leave. He wanted to stay. This may have well been the only major difference we had that we couldn't work out. Sitting here tonight, I wonder what was possibly more important in Chicago that compelled me to leave. But I would not have left had I understood that I would never, ever be able to come back.

There's an origami swan on my dresser and another in my jewelry box. How many hundreds more may be spread through drawers and boxes, I have no idea. He'd been making them in church and giving them to me since before we hit double digits. Olive Garden mint wrappers, gum or Starburst wrappers, receipts, etc. Actually, tokens of my teenage years are wrapped up in little tiny birds.

Where I was passionate and carefree and spontaneous, he was loyal and trustworthy and honest. Together we were balanced. His eyes radiated a steadfast kindness. Though we often disagreed, we'd never argue. Odd, since we were both stubborn to a fault. But when I just need to sit quietly, he'd sit quietly beside me. And he stood up for me in tense moments too; quietly, firmly, calmly sorting out the facts. I could take being wrong when he was the one who pointed it out to me. I never questioned our friendship. It was one of life's certainties in my mind. Each new day carries hopes for change, excitement, or some newness, but also for stability in what is known and taken for granted. I took him for granted.

An email shattered an idle Friday afternoon. The first time I read it, I immediately believed that I hadn't seen a word of it. My eyes skipped right over the words I didn't want to see. I quickly closed the email, pretending I hadn't seen it at all. I tried to go back to my work, but my hands were shaking. Finally I opened the email again, having convinced myself that it wasn't true, but needing to be sure it wasn't. I sat staring at that email until the clock hit 5. I left work without saying a word.

Then my mom called, realizing that no one had called me and frantically trying to reach me before the email that assumed everyone had already been told. Just her name on the screen and I felt the awfulness of the moment plunge into my stomach like a railroad spike.

I answered the phone. "I know."

She started crying. I bit my lip. There's things I know to say, but I could say them this time.

It was a dark and quiet week. I coveted the darkness of the covers pulled over my head. I longed for the silence of the night where I didn't have to push the pain away. At the same time I couldn't stand being alone, though I was poor company. If giving up hadn't been so easy, I probably would have done it. But taking the easy route would have been far too pleasurable and I wanted none of that.

I flew home after work on a Thursday. I hadn't been home in a year and three weeks. Pulling up to my family's home, I felt an strange sensation. I was coming to a place I knew deftly, but was having to dredge it out of the fresher memories of my new life. I walked slowly up the driveway until the motion sensor light clicked on, remembering that last night and almost hearing his voice and the car idling. I shivered. I wasn't cold, but I so badly wished I could be warm in his embrace one more time.

Spending time with friends and family was refreshing, but the gaping hole was evident in every silent moment. In all the preparations, we had to laugh and we had to cry. I watched his family. I remembered what that was like. People are all around you at first, and sometimes you have to go through the motions of grief, because you cannot keep repeating for every well-intentioned visitor who needs to grieve with you that which they expect you to feel, even though sometimes you don't feel that way at all. Sometimes you don't feel. Other moments are flashes of intense clarity in which you see the truth but have to push it away because it is almost too much to bear. The morning my dad passed away, I ate a half-pound of Russell Stover's truffles and then ran up the hill behind our house. The first real feeling I expressed to those around me was that of intense stomach pain. I always thought I could blame that on the chocolate and the running.

At church, I slid into that third-to-last rose-colored cushioned pew and scooted in, leaving the last seat open. I did this without thinking. I always left room for Sean to come in late. Mid-way through the second song, the sanctuary door opened. I actually turned, fully expecting it to be Sean. When it wasn't him, I realized that I would have to except this strange world we suddenly lived in without him. He wouldn't come slip in beside me with that slyly sheepish little grin and whisper "I slept in, what'd I miss?". The first thing I felt again was that intense stomach pain.

After the service, we went to Aaron and Roshan's new apartment. I hadn't seen them since before they got engaged, and now they had been married for several months. We shared stories and memories and laughed heartily. I think we laughed so because we needed not to cry, and laughter is nearest vent of emotional energy to tears. It felt natural and safe. These people are my childhood, my home. Home isn't a place. Home is those who know you best and love you anyway.

It's been two months. I'm holding one of these fragile little birds and missing him tonight. A fragile paper bird and a lot of memories. Is this life? If so, how silly I was to count on it! He couldn't steal another hour and I couldn't help him do it. The loss I feel means I loved him. It would be worse to not feel pain. I can't have him back. I don't know why it all had to happen this way. But he left me a dozens of origami birds, a coin, and a reason to smile through the tears. He taught me to value home. By leaving, he brought me home again. He made me remember the life that I had carelessly forgotten, and I remembered that I was loved and needed to love in return.

Sean was quiet, but never went unnoticed. He loved me and I am a better woman because of him and for love of him. I take account of everything he taught me and shared with me and believe that his was a life well lived.

all grown up.

My not-so-little brother turned 21 years old today.

Strange, since I still remember him as the squirrelly-headed 4-year old who wore pinstriped blue conductor overalls and a purple t-shirt with hippos on the front, chased the chickens in the backyard, threw matchbox cars into my shin and sank his baby teeth into my kneecap until I howled and kicked him.

That little brat is legal. That is hard to believe.

My hell - in verse

This week really bites
Methinks it should die quickly
Hate is a weak word

-an original haiku by RJZ

Say niether never nor forever

I have this knack for getting exactly what I wanted...

...usually a while after I've decided that I no longer care so deeply about it.


It's frustrating, but fascinating. Some mysterious occurrence that seems to suggest my life is guided by something in the shadows beyond all my intent.

I'd have been thrilled by this at some point in my past. And now, though it makes me smile, I feel as if I might politely decline.

I know too much. I tried that already. I dismissed that friendship. I want something else.

He doesn't understand my nonchalantness and lack of enthusiasm.
"If not now, when?"
He asks.
"Never."
I didn't say it, but it rings in my head.

Never is a strong word. It binds. Say neither never nor forever. Both are promises too hard to keep.

Small, Insignificant Everything

I have a clock on one wall and a cross on the other.
Now if I can just remember to look both ways and also grab my keys on the way out...

There's so much to change, fix, make right
in this world.
in my own head.

I started eager.
I settled in.
I never wanted expectations.
But they followed me.

The only difference between bondage and freedom is who holds the key.

In my dreams, the past...
In my waking, the future...
And in this moment, the deft passing of everything that is now.

The small, insignificant everything.

The Plan. (And a few congealing thoughts).

The Plan:

1. Become fluent in Russian

2. Get whatever schooling and training would be useful for 5 and 6

3. Move to Russia or Ukraine (or another Russian-speaking country)

4. Marry the world's best fellow who wants to adopt a bunch of kids, speaks or wants to speak Russian, lives or wants to live in Russia (ok, so this is going to be the hardest part...might need a bit of re-working...maybe instead I could be a nun and start a convent that cares for the kids?well, they really need male role models so I won't give up on my first choice just yet)

5. Open a family-style orphange, legally adopting some and caring for others who may be social orphans

6. Establish a non-profit that supports the development of family care and education for orphans
7. Try to spread a successful model of family care and education for orphans across the globe.



Think it's possible?



Guess I'll get crackin' on 1 and 2 as best I can, pray with diligence, and then jump at the opportunities I am given. This is my desire but I guess I'll just have to wait and see what God has in mind.

It's hard because I've grown weary of words. I wrote in my journal on the train yesterday for the first time since London. I looked down at the pencil in my hands and I suppressed a stong urge to snap it in half. My hands can do better than this. I'd rather hold a child than a pencil.

I've been odd since returning. I haven't wanted to talk about it. I've had nothing to say. I walked with a friend for three hours by the lake on Friday night. Before we set out I told him that I was no good for conversation because I had nothing to say. We walked mostly in silence, catching fireflies, splashing our toes in the water, and watching the lights blink on in a thousand windows.

I turned to him at the end of the evening with my simple explanation. "It's just, I don't want to say any more unless I can finally do something about it."

I'll never change the world. I'm not that awesome. But I can take a corner of it and make it just a little bit brighter. To think it was a tag on a sweater brought me that first time to their corner of the world.

An all-powerful God that would use a tag on a sweater to convey His will to me. Crazy...

People question it all the time, and raise eyebrows when I say I love Eastern Europe and want to move there. Yesterday, I discovered one silly, simple, but very logical reason why I should go to Eastern Europe rather than work with needy kids here in the U.S.

Don't laugh....

I'm too small to help kids here.

Yes. I mean physically too small. Too skinny. I said don't laugh.

I went with a group of inner city kids and some volunteers from my church to the beach yesterday. With only one other guy willing to jump in the water with them, I threw caution to the wind and jumped in too. The wrestling and body-slamming that henceforth occured left bruises on my ribs, shoulders, wrists, bum, ankles...and pretty much everywhere else.

So I can pretty much only handle African American and Latino American kids until they are about 5 years old. Then they can beat me up. It was a fun day, but I'm physically incapable of doing that every day.

So my aforementioned plan...I can't make it happen, but I'm aiming in that general direction. Chesterton comes to mind as I try to narrow down what I want to accomplish in my lifetime: 'All roads lead to Rome; which is why many men never get there.'

I care for many things, but this one, it has my attention. "Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul." If so, teach me to pray.

Missing.

I can't sleep. I can't swallow. I can't think. I can't cry.

I can't go back.


My body is several thousand miles from where my heart is, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Every time I am there I know what I want for my life. That's saying something for a girl who notoriously can't settle.

I have renewed determination to love, to learn; to learn to love. The depths of me are tied to those eyes and smiles. I will be there again, I am so sure of it.

2 days now. One more trip. All their beautiful faces. And a still small voice that I'm having trouble concentrating on in the midst of all the shouting.

My life finds meaning in this one thing. I work hard at most everything but nothing was ever so fulfilling as the simplest smile. It's also the deepest heartbreak I've ever known. I guess that's how it works when you love another more than your own life.

I came home last year and unraveled emotionally. Too many questions and not enough answers. I slipped into a bitter, reluctant, lazy, self-serving, apathetic, cynical and depressed. I did plenty of things that I regret. Then I decided to leave it all and start over. It's been an uphill climb back to this time and another packed suitcase.

I'm thinking ahead this time. I'm ready, I think. Ready to make something of this. Ready to dedicate more than my emotions (because they never had a choice anyway). Can I make this feeling an action, my action a movement, and my movement a change? I'll start with the first step.

The reason - while I could barely face it - that I felt so empty after coming home last year, was because I felt small, useless, inconsequential, unable - and I chose to act as if my actions had no impact on the world, even my small one.

Then someone brought me a cup of tea one morning and through our talks began to open my eyes to how I came to give up on myself. He doesn't know it, but he restored the value of me in my own eyes.

I come a little more humbled, a little more realistic, a little more mature, a little more faithful, and with a renewed and revised determination. This love deserves my best.

Love and everything incomplete

I'm watching him sleep and seeing the face of a little boy. He sighes and curls up and looks peaceful and innocent and for a brief moment I want to go grab a corner of the blanket and curl up next to him. But then I look at my hands and remember who I am and who he is and why that wouldn't be all right, (even though we do that sometimes and don't make a big deal of it).

We're all children who wake up and grow up and get our dreams smashed and hearts broken and have find ourselves and our own way. In our innocence and in our agony we scratch at skin and hurt ourselves and each other.

Please believe me, I never meant to hurt you. Every moment that I travel away from the moment before, that moment feels heavier and more horrible to me until I throw it off with a cry and vow to get it right this time.

I walked across the stage one year ago today. It took my whole life to get to those few short steps, and then they were over in an instant and I had a whole new eternity to begin. How far have I come and how much farther can I go today?

I feel the world on my face every morning, taunting and questioning and anxiously waiting for me. Some days I pull my hair into my eyes and whisper to it: "I'm doing the best that I can..."

He opened his eyes suddenly and looked at me. I smiled. His eyes grinned and then closed again. When he rolled over and pulled the blanket up, his toes got uncovered. I reached over and pulled the blanket back down a little, so he won't wake up cold.

If I can't love you completely, maybe I can at least make sure you don't wake up cold.

I wish there was a garden

"I wish there was a Garden
Where the love of God would never harden..."

Me too, love. Me too.

I don't know what to say. I always finish reading the update emails feeling breathless and emotionally hauled over the coals. I'm simultanously inspired, joyful, angry, sad and confused. And I don't have to live with it every moment. I just read the emails. And a little girl's poem about her garden.

ALS is quite possibly the ugiliest thing that has ever existed. If I were God I'd never let this happen.

I am helpless to their struggle to find words for that which is unspeakably awful.
I'm the one raising my fist at God, even while they are faithful in spite of this terrible adversity.

Dear Lord, if not a garden, by your grace help me at least plant a flower...

My computer blew up.

The blue screen of death kind...ugh. Most everything was backed up, but I'm still temporarily back in the stone age...or the 80's, I guess. Hey...those weren't so bad (cue "Born in the USA" here)...but I still want my computer back.

And the lovely Comp"USA" forgot a state. MINE. I'm not driving to Dayton people, geez.

I'm using Eric's computer because he's super fabulous like that. And he's busy watching TV.

I'll be in Seattle all weekend for Ryan and Michelle's wedding, hanging with lots of my wonderful people...



But don't get any ideas about me. My quote of the day? Oh, this:

"I'm not very successful at ending relationships. I mean, I broke it off, but it doesn't work so well when afterwards I leave my clothes in his apartment!"

(my jacket, mind you...and nothing else) :)
But he did twist my arm, as well as hold my jacket hostage in exchange for a lunch date. Ah, boys....they make me smile...and then bolt for the nearest exit.

The Secret Wishes I Told To The Devil On My Shoulder

I wish the universe were smaller so I could put in on my bed and fall asleep all tangled up with it the way we always did when you meant everything to me.

I wish I could ride a bike and overcome my fear of everything (and ride away from you).

I wish I could bake all the suffering in the world into a pie and make you smile again.

I wish the sun would come up in the west for just one day so I could wake up backwards and undo all the mistakes I made while I was sleeping.


But then you would win, and sacrifice would mean nothing.

Society owes an apology to St. Patrick

I think it's safe to presume that Saint Patrick didn't intend for a day in his honor to be spent getting wasted. He's probably is turning in his grave.

Even the city itself looked hung over yesterday. I'd hadn't seen anything that even slighly resembled smog in this city until yesterday, because the wind blows so much. But yesterday it seemed that Nature itself called in sick.

I woke up bright-eyed (though somewhere around noon) and thankful. I felt lucky to be alive, if for no other reason than that fact that I'd survived the drive home 10 hours earlier.

"Call 911!" I saw Nick go for the phone, so I manuevered my car safely through the smoke and debri, hit the flashers and raced back towards the crash. I hadn't seen the little blue Corolla actually spin out and smash through the guardrail, but it couldn't have happened more than a few seconds before we arrived. The two people in the car seemed ok -though shaken and probably a little scratched up since they had to climb out the window. I was thankful to see them get out of the car alive, but my heart sank when I saw how drunk they were. They refused any help, and wouldn't listen when we told them to stay away from the car, because with all the fluids leaking from it we couldn't be sure that it wouldn't blow. I refused to leave them until the cops and the ambulance arrived. They will be sore, hung-over, and very sorry in the morning, but I hope they learned something from this.

I don't know if it is luck 'o the Irish, but they should be dead.

Driving 45 minutes back to Lincoln Park was like picking my way through a minefield. I watched 8 people get busted and saw two more accidents. I was scared, sickened, and sad for all these people - but mostly just angry. It was so needlessly dangerous. I'm not known for responsibility - with alcohol or with much else, but I do know when I can't drive. Do they not know better? I can't really believe that.

Maybe it was only one lapse of judgement, one drink too many. And I know from my own experiences in making mistakes that it only takes one. But I have this suspicion that this wasn't the case with all of them.

Needless to say I was depressed because I got a faceful of this ugly nature of man to stupidly do what he has no reason to believe is right, under any circumstance. I don't have a ton of faith in people to do what is right. I know myself too well to believe that. But where does this end and where can we as a society start to change behaviors that are killing us? Freedom was turned terrible by depravity. Can we do nothing but spiral downward?

A question for the ages...ironically, it makes me feel like I need a drink.

Why I will never drink a slushie again

I didn't know what a "winter mix" was until I left Edwardo's last night around 8 o'clock. When I walked into the restaurant at 5 it was a bit dreary out, but a calm, fairly warm day.

When I came out to my car at 8 it looked like someone bleached the apocalypse and sent judgement day upon the suburbs.

A "winter mix" is basically a giant slushie sent from hell to punch you in the face. Snow, sleet, hail, ice, rain...and wind to stir it all up.

Point taken. Chicago is not a city to go out in unprepared.

Memories, Chances, Love...and Circumstances.

Hopefully I will have a new job soon. I am trying to quit my current one today, so I'm blogging as I wait for my boss to get here. Even if there was something productive that I could do, the motivation is very low when you know you are leaving. Maybe I will explain this whole crazy mess later. In the meantime, I have two very interested new potential employers that are finishing first interviews this week. So I wait, write polite and charming thank you letters, and pray furiously.

The past 5 weeks I've had to re-evaluate almost everything. It's been incredibly challenging, but generally not regrettable (other than missing friends like crazy...phone calls saved my life). I don't think I know yet how much I've grown through this experience, and it continues on...

I've had surprising contact with old friends. One short email surprised me. It was simple and short, a "thanks for the good times and the talks...you were needed" type of email. At this stage of my life, where I haven't felt very needed lately, it was a huge boost to a depressing week.

He was one of those "almosts" in the love department, but more importantly a good friend. We shared a week of fun and hectic memories working at a camp in Washington state. My favorite day was on the yacht, when we traded shirts (uh, yea...that doesn't sound right...but it was fairly innocent, thanks to modest swimwear) and sat on the bow talking and laughing. Windblown and sunburnt but caring for none of it save our time together. The scenery was breathtaking as we circled Puget Sound, and it went down in history as one of the most refreshing days of my life.
We also shared a strange bond over the love of Panda black licorice...it became a sweet little way that we expressed concern for each other. All in all, it was a friendship that meant a lot to me, but that I know will never be the same again, because life is life and we all move on.
So this email was a special reminder to me that he treasures those same moments that I treasure, and even if things will never be the same again, we both share a part in each other's history. And just knowing that is special enough.

Sentimental sigh.

the inconcievably brilliant logic of our childhood

~ My 5-yr old brother, on why he stuffed small pungent berries up his nose, resulting in massive sneezing and snorting and eventually a trip to the doctor for a thorough purging of the nasal cavity:


"I was trying to hide them from you, Mommy."





Or, why Remy has no desire or need of her own children at this moment.