Dahlias and Hailstorms

Sometimes I write about things and tuck them away for a while. Sometimes I need them to just be for me and for God - my own private act of worship. Then, unexpectedly, I will stumble upon them again and find that they warm and encourage my heart. Worship is that way - carrying value far into forever whether it's forgotten by our feeble human minds or not. I hope these words shower a little burst of hope over your hearts today.

Love y'all like crazy.

The storm rolled in fast. The sky fell dark and the rain started to fall. Adele’s sultry voice filled up my kitchen while I unloaded the dishwasher, my mind full up and empty all at the same time. There was so much to be thinking about that my thought-making machine had all but stopped functioning. Overload. All of it - my heart, my mind, my spirit - too full, too empty. Which is it?

And suddenly the banging started - at first just one at a time, and then faster and faster until the whole of our house roared with the sound of hail hitting the roof and the sky lights. I watched from my kitchen window as the storm intensified and all of my beautiful flowers, my dahlias that were on the verge of blooming, my hydrangea that has fought hard to come back from multiple unfortunate events, the tomatoes Josh planted - all of them stripped down to the stems by the icy marbles being shot from the sky with machine gun force. 

My oldest, my tender heart, ran into the kitchen to explain that all of our flowers were being ruined. I turned around and said, “I know, honey. It’s a bummer.” Her little face fell, and her little eyes welled up, “But they were doing so good after that last hail storm! Daddy’s tomato plant had so many tomatoes starting to show!” And then she launched into a full on cry. 

To be honest, I really just wanted to join her. I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry over our lovely, hard fought for flowers and tomatoes. Those dahlias that I was so excited to watch bloom now look broken, bare and dead. They look just like my heart feels. But God in his sweetness reminded me - “They’ll be back again next spring. They grow back.” I know it’s true, but it’s so hard to remember that in the moment of loss. It’s hard to remember how to feel the loss and hold the hope, to settle in for another year of waiting before those giant purple and red blooms appear, to acknowledge that I might never actually get to see them - the bulbs I planted and tended and waited on - in one fell swoop, the ice took away my opportunity to enjoy them, but not necessarily the opportunity for them to thrive.

Sometimes we do the work. We pour ourselves heart and soul into a thing. We buy all the way in, and it just doesn’t end up being a thing we get to watch bloom. Sometimes we do the dirty work and then a storm rolls in and sweeps away our opportunity to see the thing thrive - and we ache over that loss. That’s okay, I think, the ache - but only if it’s connected to hope and trust. Trust is the thing that allows us to walk away in peace - without ever seeing the bloom. 

Making Space

Photo cred: Molly Townsend, my sister, queen of photography.

These are our babies, my sister's and mine - all spectacularly unique and still so little that they only know how to be - and make space for exactly who they are. My mom, in fact, overheard an interchange between Emily Ellen and Marilee a few months ago that still gets us tickled. They were coloring happily together until someone did something that escalated into the exchange of ugly words. They paused and Emily Ellen said to Marilee, "We should probably say we're sorry," to which my Marilee quickly replied, "I'm not sorry." At which point Emily Ellen responded, "I'm not either." And it was over. They went back to coloring. And while they may have some things to learn about apologizing when you don't feel like it, they also have some things to teach us about making space for each other. They had their tiff, said their junk aloud to one another, and then moved right along in their relationship with one another. They are so, so good at making room for each other's ugly, and I am just about smitten with it.

Can we just talk, for a minute, about how challenging it is to become the person we want to be? But seriously, I was just looking through my Evernote Notebooks (my husband just did a herkie because he has a SERIOUS Evernote crush) and found a note that I wrote in January. Not that many months ago. That I forgot existed. At all. It is a list of my goals for this year. It reads like this:

Bible

• Read through the New Testament with Calvary and journal via the FB page and Insta.

Prayer

• Pray daily with purpose and passion - but most of all with persistence.

Writing

• Write daily for one hour.

Bellwether

• Pray and watch for next steps.

Exercise

• Jog 1 mile 3 days/week. 

• Work up in ab exercises 3 days/week.

• Work up in pull ups 3 days/week.

Lumpkin.

I have managed to sort of mostly keep up with the Calvary reading plan. The end. That is all. 

I'm so good at list making and dreaming and feeling all the feelings. I'm so bad at list doing. There is more to this issue than just, "I mean - nobody keeps their New Year's resolutions." I am easily distracted by too many dreams, and I get all wrapped up in all my feelings. So many feelings and desires and passions. 

"Sometimes I have big feelings where big feelings are not needed." - Michal Lynn Tweedie

And so this becomes the issue for us dreamers. To step out of the dream world long enough to live in the real one. To put the feelings aside in order to take up the task at hand. But lists like that one up there - they are valuable, because now I remember. I remember what I set out to do in 2017, and 2017 ain't over, baby. Maybe I'll go for a jog tomorrow. Maybe you can ask me about it? Maybe I'll journal a little better about what God is teaching me through personal Bible Study. Maybe you can ask me about that, too?

Together is, in my experience, the hardest and also the most sure-fire way to get to the place you want to be.

If you're married - or really even if you are not - chances are God has put someone in your life who is the opposite of you. The very, exact opposite. I hung out with a new friend last week who expressed how very not-feely she is and how it slap wears her out when women pour out and swim in all their feelings. I giggled and shared with her that my propensity is, in fact, to BE one of those women - except that I have learned that my feelings can either be drowning agents or tools for growth. The first is what they are when I let them guide my life. The latter is what they are when I choose to look for what (or who) they are pointing me to. She later shared that sharing her "junk" in front of people is a hard thing for her. I love, love this about both of us. Can you see it? How our struggles and strengths actually complement each other?!

I have to tell you that Josh and I are struggling to muddle through how we can complement and not crush each other. We've been married for nearly twelve years, and we are so different than we were a decade ago. But our personalities are the same as they were - different as ever. Last night we had a big word vomit fest where we just laid it all on the table - everything we're muddling through. And apart from Jesus, it seems impossible to love each other well. That's the truth. But with Jesus, with Him - only Him - He can lead us both to Evernote (herkie #2) at the same time to sort out what we are thinking and feeling. Me in a coffee shop. Josh in a meeting room. And we can giggle wildly when we share our notes because his is in detailed bullet list form and mine is in the shape of a very pretty, wordy few paragraphs that reads half like a prayer and half like a journal entry.

My point is this - God has all sorts of ways of refining us - and I've come to learn that it's almost entirely through relationships. When we run into a person who challenges us, who forces us to think a little differently, who asks hard questions, who disagrees with us - what do we do? Do we run? Do we shut down? Or do we bravely, boldly say, "You. I choose you because walking alongside you will make me more like Jesus, more whole, more changed." Do we dare to be exactly who we are while blending lives with the ones who are not like we are, but are seeking to love Jesus like we are?

Gosh, I hope so. Because this is the body of Christ. Saying it hurts when it hurts. Asking about the run or the sin or the dream. Making space for feelings even when they aren't needed but loving a person too much to let them be led by their feelings instead of God's loving, disciplining Word and guiding Spirit. Making space for bullet lists even when they're boring but loving a person too much to let them be led by their doing instead of God's gracious, freeing Word and guiding Spirit. This is part of the richness of following Jesus alongside all the other ones who are following Him. It's messy and hard but He's using us to move each other toward wholeness, friends! Let's not miss it.

Why Noonday?

If I am going to tell you about my journey to Noonday, I need to go way back. Before babies and church planting and home ownership - basically before any real adulting started for Josh and me. Radical by David Platt came sprawling across the American church culture - sending us all spinning and chewing and wrestling and running. Some of us ran way too far with the whole thing, exalting him and his words to near Scripture authority - which he never demanded from us, but I digress. 

I read Radical, and I was deeply convicted. I was also deeply shamed. There is a difference. Conviction is for healing. Shame is for crippling. I had just bought some new curtains. Curtains I'd saved up for - for like, a year - because of the part where we weren't really adulting yet and therefore didn't have a lot of money at our disposal. 

I remember lying on the couch next to Josh, tears honest-to-goodness sliding down my face, and saying, "Do I have to take my curtains back now?"

And so it has gone - on and on through my growing process - this battle with consumerism. Do I control it or does it control me? Am I terribly selfish because I like pretty things, and I like to buy them for my house and my kids and me? What kind of person does it make me that there are people literally dying from lack of food and clean water while I whine about curtains?

And also God is gracious and kind and loves to see me enjoy that which I love to enjoy, within the bounds of what is healthy for me. So what about that?

Back and forth we go.

Fast forward to two babies later and I participated in Jen Hatmaker's Seven. Not because I felt guilty or because I was looking for a big, crazy change your life thing, but because I had learned that choosing to wade into what looks suspiciously like a mess of blindspots is a really valuable thing in following Jesus more honestly. And my eyes were blown open to the idea of social and consumer responsibility. And instead of thinking, "How can I spend less to give more," I started thinking, "How can I spend more wisely to empower more broadly? How can I better see people as people rather than charity cases?"

And it changed me. It changed the way I saw the homeless, the very, very different than me, the rude, the arrogant, the judgmental, the whiny pants - I started looking them in the eyes and my heart started growing tender, soft, and pliable - open and curious. 

Then I moved to an area of the country where we were the "poor" ones - and we were not poor. This was an interesting twist. Three babies in I took a job as a lifeguard which required me to pull hair out of drains - AKA the form of humility just above wiping grown-up's hineys. I didn't rub shoulders with people who had less than me for the most part - always people who had more. This changes your view point, slowly and surely.

But then we moved back to my hometown, and Josh took a job that puts us neck deep in visible, tangible brokenness along with spiritual brokenness. And I found myself face to face, once again, with my extraordinary privilege and selfishness. I strolled down the sidewalk of one of the strip malls in town and found myself face to face with a very dirty man digging in and eating from a trash can on the sidewalk. His eyes - friends - I was struck sick with all of the people, myself included, strolling in and out of stores buying what they didn't need while he ate scraps from a trash can. I didn't have any cash or any food to give him, and so I walked by - headed into one of those good ole' poorly-made-clothing warehouses, my gut still lurching from what I'd just seen.

I stood in the aisle fingering a necklace that I was considering buying (please know I hear your shout-y thoughts at me right now - I was delivering them to myself as well). I needed a new on to replace the last cheap gold number that had finally turned an awful shade of green. I flipped it over to find the price tag and discovered that it was $28. Twenty-eight. For a necklace I would have to replace in less than 6 months, that was likely made by severely underpaid employees - twenty-eight dollars that would never have anything to do with putting actual food on a person's table, or allowing them to keep and raise there own children. 

And then I thought about Noonday and what I had heard about it through social media and the IF:Gathering. I thought about how it actually is possible to, for not too much more money than the "cheap" stuff, buy pretty things AND affect change - about how we live in a day when that is a real thing. So, I began researching what it would look like to become part of this new thing called ethical fashion through Noonday.

I love that I can know the stories of the people I'm buying from - that when I buy form them I'm not contributing to another needless fundraiser or money for the sake of money - I'm contributing to the actual livelihood of a person that would otherwise not have the same opportunities to thrive. I can know their stories and sometimes look into their eyes. The truth is, people usually want the opportunity to use their hands more than they want a handout.

And also - the jewelry is SPECTACULAR! I mean truly - each one is a statement piece, and I'm a girl who likes to make a statement.

So in the end, the becoming a Noonday Ambassador was an easy choice. Click that link over on the right (you might have to scroll down a bit) and you can peruse our Fall/Winter line - and maybe buy a few things. You'll love some of it and the rest of it one of your friends or family will love! 

Follow me on social media - Facebook and Instagram - for more updates about the beauty of Noonday, how to host a trunk show, how to become an ambassador, how to get in on my Noonday launch party - about creating a flourishing world where children are cherished, people have jobs, women are empowered and we are connected. 

Let's take our privilege (because if you have a computer or phone and the internet at your regular disposal, you are already more privileged than most of the world) and leverage it for good, friends. Let's change the world!

But most of all, let's be kind and generous and conscious as we move through our days. No one should have to eat from a trash can while we buy cheap, fake comfort.

Love y'all like crazy!

Mostly Just a Journal Entry

Do you ever take a moment to evaluate where you and your family are in life? To decide whether or not life is happening to you or you are engaging in life? Transition is a time when you sort of naturally get the opportunity to reevaluate, to decide again.

I was listening to The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey today, which, if you are looking to dabble in the podcast world or really enjoy listening to chicks talk about hard stuff, good stuff, funny stuff, etc, I highly recommend, and she was interviewing author and speaker Shauna Niequest. Shauna, in my opinion, is a contemporary writer whose work will outlast so many others of our generation. She is genuinely a gifted wordsmith and storyteller with great depth and ability. There are a lot of women writing these days, a lot of wise women, but not all of them are genuinely fantastic, could-become-classics writers. Shauna, however, is. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I digress.

So, Shauna. She said again today on of my favorite things she says - it's easy to decide what you want to be for. It's hard to decide what you want to give up so you can be for those things.

For this next year, I want to be for rest. I want our family to be for rest. Above all else, encompassing every decision we make, I want rest to be the goal. This means the surrender of so many things - of my tendency to dive head-long into leadership and community making and general schedule overcrowding. This means no to most extra-curriculars and the pursuing of certain giant dreams. It means a lot, a lot of no's. And it will go against every fiber of my being. Truly.

In addition to her comment about the "no's," she also made a comment about what your body and your life sort of repeatedly tells you - and whether or not you listen to it. She was referencing her desire to have four babies close together and her body's refusal to allow that to happen. Sometimes, you just need to surrender.

Here's how this applies to me - I promise I have a point.

My entire life has pointed me toward a career in education. Like, always and forever - it's been education. But if I'm honest, teaching isn't nearly so glamorous as any of the dreams I had in mind. Plus, I hear a lot of teachers talk about how very much they hate teaching, so there's that. Teaching and motherhood - I get the same general vibe from some of the others who are doing those things - that it's an uphill battle and they can't wait for it to be over. I am old enough now to not be naive - to not assume that I'll be different, that teaching will be Freedom Writers and Mr. Holland's Opus and The Dead Poet's Society.

I'm scared, though, to walk into a thing that I really don't have high expectations for - that I want desperately to be an amazing experience - but that isn't the same as being an author or running a business. Don't hear me say that teachers are not amazing. They totally are. Teaching just isn't my dream, and also it is.

The bottom line is, when I teach - and watch someone learn a new thing - when I see the lightbulb go off, the skill applied - I feel a joy explosion. This has always been true - always. Somehow, life always seems to bring me back around to some sort of teaching.

Sometimes, life thrusts you into a thing, and by life, I mean God. Circumstances align. You need to help support your family financially. You need a job that allows you to be home with your kids more than others, that provides good insurance. You love literature - deeply love it - and you love to watch other people love it. You believe in the power of literature to change people, to help them wrestle through their thoughts and beliefs about life. You believe in art. And you're a decent speaker. You can organize stuff. You're pretty creative.

But you're also scared that saying, "yes," to this means saying, "No," to writing the books and running that company you've been dreaming of. You're also scared because doing a new thing at 32 is freakin' intimidating. That sneaking question keeps popping up again and again - "Are you really good enough?"

Am I good enough to study for my exams for my teaching certification while homeschooling my kids this year? Am I good enough to get a job next fall teaching somewhere? Am I good enough to let go of the dreamy dreams, for the solid, tangible, necessary ones of the moment?

And still I hear the general prompting of the Holy Spirit, "Let go of good enough and let me be enough. You are good enough because I made you. This isn't the end of your dreamy dreams, but I can do far more than you ever asked or imagined - and sometimes that looks very different than what you had planned."

Funnily enough, Shauna's latest book is called Present Over Perfect (which is coming to me for my birthday from a dear friend), which seems just about perfect for me right now. Be present in your real life right now, today. Stop looking to be perfect or for the perfect thing. So, that's my new plan. And I I have a sneaking suspicion there's going to be some magic in it - that God is going to surprise me in good, good ways. And that teaching calling I've always run from? Maybe it's the dream I never new I had.

What are you wrestling with right now?

Teachers, tell me. Why do you love your job?

Don't Leave Out the Messy - still brewing

Let's live here for another post. I've been thinking a lot about it.

Today, I was reading in Joshua 2 about Rahab (I'm using IF:Equip - a great resource for studying the Word on your own and reflecting on it in an online community). The obvious take away is that God uses anyone who is willing - anyone. But in all this talk about the messiness of moving forward in our faith, I couldn't help but think about the spies that Rahab was helping. They spent the night in a brothel. I'm just going to let that sink in for a minute. Let's play this out in current day circumstances:

God has very clearly called your church to go to a certain city and win it for Him but none of you have ever even been. So, you send some of your most upright church dudes. You know that this city hates Christians and will not hesitate to kill these guys. So, also, they're brave. They go and when they return they tell you this story about how they wound up in a brothel hanging out with a prostitute. And she saved them. And she's a Believer, too.

Wait, what? How'd you end up in a brothel to begin with? Are you sure she's a Believer? I mean, she IS living a life of sin. And seriously, how'd you end up in a brothel?

What if you were the guys? We don't know how they ended up in a prostitutes house. We don't know why - but that is messy faith, right? I mean, she saved them. And then she was adopted into the Israelite people - and then she was included in the lineage of Jesus Christ. I don't know. I cannot understand it all. In this world of do's and don'ts, it's sometimes hard to know what is messy faith and what is straight sin.

In having a conversation about this with my very wise, sees things in black and white husband, we talked about going to a bar or any other place that might be typically questioned by those who shy away from messy, and he made a great point, "Of course Jesus would have gone to the (insert any place viewed as shady). But he wouldn't have gotten drunk or cussed or sinned or participated in any sort of lewd behavior at all. He wouldn't have done anything that displeased God."

And that's where it gets tricky. That's why an honest, intimate relationship with God is VITAL to quality, honest, and pure relationships with those around us. Sometimes he says, "Go spend the night at that brothel," and other times he says, "Do not go to that movie/that bar/that concert." Messy, messy, mess.

Again I say, I cannot understand it all, but I love exploring faith with Him and with you! I am learning to relish the messy because doing so presses me harder into the King of bringing Peace to the Mess. Let's all get a little dirt on our boots and see what happens!

Don't Leave Out the Messy

I need to say something.

Don't leave out the messy.

Josh had a conversation with some friends of his the other day about starting a new church - about how they would do it if they had the chance (and the desire or calling). Their answers were honest, thoughtful, and honestly very helpful for Josh and me as we mulled over and through them.

The one that had me stuck for a few days was about being real and relevant. You all know that I've touched on this many times before. I think that I am pretty real. I don't pretend that I'm something that I'm not - or at least not intentionally. You know that my marriage is good but it isn't perfect, my children are incredible but, good gravy they are sinners, and I have conversations like this with my sister:

I am an over achiever. I love books that help me know how to pursue Jesus more and better. I also love books that allow me to escape my every day life. I struggle to choose joy every day. I still enjoy watching the Twilight series. (Don't laugh. Okay, laugh if you must. Roll your eyes even. It's justified.) Sometimes I still wonder if people really like me. I need lots of verbal affirmation and that annoys me about myself. I drink wine about three times a year because, good lawsy, I love a glass of Pinot Grigio. I don't drink wine during all the rest of the year because it can make some people uncomfortable. And I don't need it. And coffee is enough of a vice for me, thankyouverymuch. And addiction runs in my family. I'm an awful long distance friend (I'm so sorry to all of you who haven't heard from me in person in an embarrassing amount of time.) And Friends will forever and always be my happy place.

What I want to convey to everyone is that I am who I am - we are who we are - all of the time, whether it's weird for us to drink or weird for us not to drink. Whether you think I'm a loser for watching Twilight or stinking awesome (Go ahead - toss me another eye roll). I haven't always been this way, but I am now - and it is so blissfully freeing! Seriously.

Are you? Real, I mean - and free? Y'all, don't leave out the messy. I doodled this in my journal a few mornings ago. And by messy, I mean anything that doesn't quite fit in your box - whatever your box is - don't leave it out. Talk through it. Say you don't know. Say you're ticked and God is on your bad list today. Yes. Do that. But also, say that you do know. Say that you are grateful and God is the redeemer of your bad list.

Real swings both ways, friends.

Aaannd...lest you think I'm tooting my own real horn here:

What I'm pretty sure I'm not is relevant - particularly in this new, very different, very interesting (the good kind) culture we find ourselves living in. So, in an effort to be more relevant because I want to hang out with my fun neighbors and have something to talk about besides my favorite Friends episode or the latest and best Christian woman author book I've read, in 2015 I commit to -

• Read twelve new books, six of which would never have been on my reading list before. I'm still deciding what these books will be, but I hope to keep you updated. Suggestions are welcome!
• Grow my knowledge base about the history of our new little town and farmhouse architecture in general.
• Watch Jimmy Fallon be hilarious as much as possible.
• Be a better listener.
• Still watch plenty of Friends.
• Still read Christian woman author books.

It gets tricky practicing both, I think - because what if being relevant means you have to change who you are? Then you aren't real and that doesn't make sense either. 

How do you practice being real and being relevant?

The Elusive Simple Life

...busyness is a cancer.  It eats away at everything good in our lives.  And before we know it.  Before we have even recognized the symptoms, the busyness has eaten us almost entirely away.  I know because it’s happened to me.  It happens to me.  My thoughts become so tangled and confused that they run and spin and trip over themselves leaving me completely frustrated and confused.  I forget to stop and talk with my God.  I forget what is and is not important – the busyness allows me to forget.

Down and Dirty

@

He Loves Us 

The Proverbial Fork

 

These tasty little treats have nothing to do with the following post.  I just feel like baby biscuits are meant to be shared.  You are welcome.

Do you every feel like you're approaching the proverbial fork in the road?  Like you haven't seen it yet, but you know it's coming.  And you haven't an inkling which prong of the fork you should choose?  Or what is along the way on either side?  You just have a stirring sense of anticipation deep within your soul but there is nothing to be done about it.  You can't even SEE the fork yet, for Pete's sake!  So, you just keep walking along your existing path peering anxiously into the distance for the change you know will come - whether it be tomorrow or ten years from now. 

I'm there.  I feel as though our family is on the brink of something big.  Good big?  Hopefully.  Hard big?  Possibly.  The fact is, I just don't know.  And I'm sorta wrestling with they why of the brink feeling.  And how to walk along the straight road, no fork in sight, knowing that a fork is coming, without failing to notice the perfect peonies to my left or the laughing children on my right. 



That is all.  There is no pretty bow.  No answer.  Just an acknowledgement that I am looking for one.

Keep on keepin' it down and dirty!

P.S.  Tomorrow there will be more about She Speaks.  I think a week of completely UNintellectual conversation has given me more to say.

Dreaming Big

I step out into the thick Louisiana air and just stop to breathe it in. I glance around at the familiar surroundings - the old tree house that I've never set foot in because my family didn't move here until I was in college. Looking at that tree house now, I kinda want to see the inside of it. I make a mental note: Check out the tree house later. The tapping of my blue tennis shoes on the driveway mingled with the sounds of the dead end by our house - birds chirping, the wind casually moving through the trees, cars distantly speeding down Jackson Street - fill me up like a breath of Spring air after a long stint in a dark closet. I reach down to touch my toes, slowly, letting my body get ready for the run, letting my thoughts drift to no place in particular. It's been so long since I have released my notions, giving them freedom to roam and roll and stretch. I can do that here, where I always feel safe and comfortable.

I take a sharp right out of the driveway, walking to the next turn, letting my legs get used to the movement. At the corner, I begin to jog. I decided to leave my iPod behind today - just to be alone with my thoughts and the streets that are sprinkled with the memories of my childhood. I can't help but notice again, as I do every time I travel down this street, that it is the dwelling place of an abnormal number of cats and kids. That's what I call it - the cats and kids street. It all makes me smile. The cats lounging on their driveways. The kids playing a joint game of softball in the street. The way I have my own name for this happy street.

I begin to think about why my heart feels so full, so at rest when I am here. In the town I grew up in. I'm not the same me I was when I lived here. I'm a new me with parts of the old me still lingering and implanted but even the new me loves to be here. Somehow my thoughts drift or tiptoe or lumber, to the t-shirt I'm wearing. How it's old and soft and my favorite of all the t-shirts in the world. In true favorite old t-shirt form, it hugs me in all of the right places and floats freely in all of the right places. When I wear it I feel perfectly, simultaneously comfortable and confident. That's sort of what it's like running down these streets. Seeing all of the old homes we lived in [we moved a lot but always stayed in the same neighborhood]. Like slipping into my oldest, most favorite t-shirt. Comfortable and confident - I don't feel both of those things at the same time anywhere else in the world. And here, today I get to slip into that old grey T [both physically and metaphorically] and run until my mind doesn't feel so cluttered and clogged anymore.

In my thoughts, I am running down this street away from a barking dog. My little sister is jumping on my back, nearly tackling me to the ground. We are both screaming and laughing in a terrified sort of way. I begin to laugh out loud. I have to slow to a walk for a little while - laughing and running are not good partners. I catch my breath as I reach the back street. Beside the field. And I have to stop for just a moment to admire the field. It's not really anything special, but it's my field. Well mine and my sister's and my brother's, too. And we grew up in the city so this was the closest thing to the great, wide countryside we ever tasted. And we felt like great explorers in that field with the river [which was actually just a drainage ditch] and the forest (which was actually just a cluster of trees that had not yet been cleared out to make more room for developments) and the wildflowers and tall grasses (which were real). And standing there, I want so desperately to recapture some of the magic that made us believe. Made us dream. Made us hope so unabashedly. I angrily mourn for the loss of those things and wonder if maybe I didn’t fight hard enough to hold onto them. And if maybe there is still time to reclaim them.

I begin to run again, this time harder and faster, hoping to completely clear my mind of all thought. I run and run and run, begging my brain to stop. And after a while it does, and I feel free of all that apprehension and anger and hopelessness that I am plagued with most of the time. And as I round the corner and make my way back home, I realize that I am exhausted, but that after all that fighting (which is essentially what all the running was), I feel like I have reclaimed a little bit of hope. And with that hope, a little of my ability to dream. And I think that maybe I'll start to believe again - believe that dreams really can come true. The new me steps in and makes note that they can but they don't always, and the old me feels okay with that. And the new me and the old me shake hands. They don't hug yet but maybe someday they will. And someday maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to intermingle and intertwine the me's in such a way that there is no difference between the two – they’ll form a third me that is more balanced and complete. Maybe someday, but today the handshake is enough.

I tap back up the driveway in my blue tennis shoes and climb up into the tree house I've never seen the inside of. Because it looks like it was probably built for catching your breath and possibly even for dreaming big.

Keep on keepin' it down and dirty, folks. Love ya'll!