two weeks and two years.

Oct. 31, 2010

So...it's been a few weeks since I've opened up this page and put words on it for you to read.
I don't know what that means.
As always, I am torn about how much time to dedicate to this, how much headspace I want to give up, and whether or not this is something I should commit myself to doing regularly.
There are lots of threads that are attached to this knot, so it's not as easy to untangle as you might think.
I'll get there one day.

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It's been two years since I looked out the window of an airplane flying across the Atlantic, and saw England waiting for me from the sky. 

Two years since Jameson was a baby bean in my belly, and I packed up all my stuff and my husband and filled that one-way ticket to the UK.

Two years since I cried myself to sleep that night because "what have we done?" and "I want to go home, but I don't know where it is."

Two long, quick, excruciating, overjoyed years.

The hardest years of my life, without a doubt.

The years that have brought the biggest blessing of my life.

I feel like I should have something more profound to say.

I remember back in those first few months, thinking, "I will not make it here for two years. I don't think I can survive."

I remember looking at the expiry date on my visa and thinking that date would never come.

But, as ever and as always, here we are. 

Two years later.

With bumps and bruises and struggles and wins.

I'm stronger and different, and it's a strange feeling to live in suspension for two years, but it's coming to a close soon.

And I wonder what little thing it is that I'm going to miss the most.

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a lovely love story (continued).

After the fateful meeting at Joe's, I'd see Daveo around occasionally. He'd always mention something about how we should hang out, which everyone said to be nice but no one ever really meant. Honestly though, he said it so many times that I started to think Wow, this guy really actually does want to hang out. That's kind of weird. Why?

I'm clearly the easiest person in the world to romance. Not.

Our next real conversation happened at dinner one night, while I was getting ready to head to my night class.
I was sitting in the dining room with a friend, when he came over and joined us. He and the girl I was eating with were already friends (Of course, I thought with an inner eye-roll) so they were busy chatting while I was finished up my food and dreading the idea of spending four hours in a classroom for the rest of the evening.

Abruptly he looked at me and said, "You should come up and see me tonight on your break."
I paused and looked at him, then said, "Okay. I guess."
He continued on, "I'll give you my free shift drink. I get one per shift and I usually give it to a friend, but I'll save it for you tonight if you come up and see me."
Being the poor, tired college student that I was, I knew there was no way I could pass up a free coffee, so I told him that I would see him later that night while my friend and I quickly gathered up our stuff and hurried off to our class.

Apparently I needed the caffeine more than I knew, because I forgot all about Daveo and his free coffee and inadvertently stood him up. Oops.

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The next day at lunch, he had this stern look on his face while walking over to my table and I was slightly amused when he opened his mouth and started scolding me for not coming to see him on my break. "I saved my free drink for you!" he said. "I had people coming in and asking me for it and I said, 'No, I can't, Cami's coming up and I told her she could have it' and then you didn't come!"
I laughed and told him that I was sorry, and that he should have just given it to someone else.

"Yeah, but I said I'd give it to you, that's the whole point!"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry! Are you working tonight? I'll come up then, okay?"

So, at 7 pm, I promptly packed up my laptop and books and headed up to Joe's to claim my free drink from this strange AsianBrit that was oddly offended when I didn't show the night before. He was much nicer when I tried to make conversation this time and somehow he ended up speaking to my sister on the phone when she called me and I said something like, 'Listen to my new British friend speak!'

Somehow I ended up staying for his whole two-hour shift, at which point he started to get nervous and mumbled something like, "So...do you want to hang out...or something?"

(He told me later that he felt like he "owed me", since I'd been standing up there with him for two hours. Good to know that it wasn't because I was so charming and he just couldn't get enough of me.)

We ended up walking to a nearby Dunkin' Donuts, where he bought a bagel and asked me if I had a boyfriend. I thought he was pretty forward, but at the same time it was kind of nice to talk to someone who just said what they thought and not what you wanted to hear. After that we walked back to campus and exchanged pleasantries about how 'we should do this again or something'.

According to Facebook, we officially became friends on January 27, 2007 at 8:36 am.

It didn't stay that way for long. *wink*

"Live it, love it, hang out with Daveo."

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oh, Chicago.

I miss you so much today that it hurts.

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silence. [flashback friday]

Another post I found when looking in the "drafts" folder. Even though I'm not pregnant anymore, the sentiments remain the same. 

Confession: reading my Bible and spending time with the Lord has not been on my "Top 10 List of Things To Do" for the past few months.

I kept getting so caught up in everything else--the sheer exhaustion I felt when waking up every morning, the massive list of things I needed to get done before Jameson gets here, what I was going to eat that day, how I was going to survive the ache in my hips, etc.

I had started another daily Bible reading plan at the beginning of the year, and was doing okay for awhile, but my motivation slowly died out. This is also due to other life circumstances, but the roundabout point that I am making is that God has not been on the top of my priority list for awhile.

However, a few weeks ago I was hit with some pregnancy insomnia that had me out of bed at 6:30 am, sitting on the couch in silence. I figured that was as good a time as any to try and catch up on all of the scripture reading I had missed, so I made some coffee and got going. After figuring out where exactly I had left off and what was going on, I came across this passage:

"Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead He devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from Him."

[2 Samuel 14:14]

Sitting in the silence of my living room, with the sun crawling through the blinds and a cup of coffee in my hands, it washed over me once again--God wants me.

I don't know why this is so hard for me to understand sometimes.

I don't know why it's so easy for me to sit and think about how far away I feel from God and come to the conclusion that I must have done something to get on His bad side, and He's just waiting until I grovel at His feet before He'll take me back.

I don't know why I have this fear that He's going to take away the blessings He's given me, because I haven't lived up to the "conditions" that they must come with.

Why is it that the weaknesses in our lives just keep showing up in different ways? Someday, I will beat this body of flesh and I will win the battle. Until then, I'm just going to keep going, because I can't do anything else.

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flashback friday

A snippet of a post that I started writing, but never finished:

I'm homesick today (but I'm not sure I can even explain what that means).

It's the middle of July, and there are rainclouds in the sky and a cool breeze blowing through the trees, and I just sit and think, "Where is summer?"

My son is sleeping in his swing right across from me, and the thoughts that tackle me when I look at him are overwhelming. The future seems so uncertain, especially with this new little guy, and I just feel like I am treading on unstable ground. Every day is different, down to how much sleep I get and how I feel physically. This is the biggest life change I've ever experienced, and I think I'm still in shock from it all.

I worry so much more now. I worry about his breathing, and his crying, and the little spots on his face, and the faces he makes, and all of the 'what-ifs' that hit me when we walk out the front door.

If I let it, this anxiety could consume me.
I'm sure I could attribute this to all of the hormones making their way out of my body right now, but I also know that this is probably just going to be the battle I fight for the rest of my life.
I'm a momma now, and suddenly, my heart is encapsulated in this little person, which means that I will always worry.

Six months later, and I am happy to report that the anxiety has gotten easier to manage, but is still around.


Looking back at this, I feel like I've gotten some sort of a handle on motherhood, even if it's just that I know my son now, and so am more familiar with what is normal (and what is not). I think the pendulum has swung the other way, and now I'm working on finding a balance between being a mom, and a wife, and still being myself and doing the things that feed my soul.


Any tips are greatly appreciated.

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