Sometimes

you want something for a very long time.
Like, say, for 22 years.
And you don't get it.
And after 22 years, you begin to wonder if you still want it.
Are you weary from the waiting?
Have you given up?
Or have you just changed?
Maybe if you're given a chance to get it, you'll figure it out. 

Uncovered

From a very young age I learned the importance of knowledge; mainly because I discovered that when you couldn't verbalize an experience or emotion, the world punished you.  It was your sister who started it, but you who got the spanking; there was a real sorrow in your heart or pain in your body, but you were told to go to your room and cry because the adults around you didn't want to hear about it.  I hated childhood, because it was so isolating; I would never go back.  The world does not bend to understand the heart of a child, it works instead to bend the heart of her or him.

So, I learned to read when I was three years old and by age eight was reading everything I could get my hands on, including my mother's 20-year collection of Reader's Digest.  I didn't know what sex was, but I was reading about kidnapping and rape when I ought to have been reading about Barbar the Elephant and Ramona Quimby, Age 8.

Thus it began: my life-long project of grabbing Knowledge and wrapping it around me as a cloak against the winds and the rain of the angry world.  In adulthood I have pursued subjects at which I excel, in which I can own my coveted Knowledge.  I write, because I read, and I understand the written word. I am a linguist, because I understand people's hearts and can wrap my own heart around their burning need to communicate, to be heard.  I travel, because it gives me Knowledge of the world and its people, which in turn makes me a better linguist, which in turn makes me a better writer.  I have jumped off cliffs and lived in boldness in so many ways, but always in ways that produced more Knowledge, without too much pain to myself.

And now I am 31, needing a more steady income than being able to pick out an accent in a crowd can give me.  So I am back in school to become a sonographer.  Great income, get to work with people (which I'm relatively good at), and have travel/ministry opportunities.  It's a good path for me.

But.

The program requires physics, and physics requires algebra, and I haven't taken algebra in 10 years.  Not only that, after I finished algebra at the age of 21, I turned and started running away from it as fast as I possibly could, because I didn't understand it and couldn't (quickly) excel. In short, it was too painful.

So this summer as I study physics, my cloak of The Right Answer which has protected me for so many years has been stripped from my shoulders, and I am found beneath it to be naked and three-years-old, shivering and crying.

I'm baaaaaaack!

Well my dears, I privatized for a while and thought about deleting, but here I am again.  I like this outlet.  I like looking back at old posts and remembering my life.  It is good.

You know what else is good?  My life.  I've had a good life.  I've lived, and that has made it good.  Kierkegaard talks a lot about venturing and risk; I think, as a young man, he did not risk enough in life and later regretted it.  I, however, am a master at risk (with both success and failure) and have no regrets.  (Well, very few, and the ones I do have would be silly to most people.)  I don't think you can live with regret and live with heart at the same time.  Risk and venture are part of life and we can only work with what's been built before.  So if I step out and risk something and it fails, what have I lost?  Nothing.  I have gained everything.  I have gained knowledge from my failure, I have gained boldness by learning how to fail.  I have been broken of perfectionism because failure has taught me I am imperfect.  I've learned to give grace to others in their failures, and I've learned to let go of the ideal for the sake of the real. 

I love risk and I love failure.  Because of this, looking back, I love the life I have thus-far lived. Even in the hard times (Endo!) I have lived fully, and to die today would be no loss.  What a lovely life I have been given.  How beautiful life is. I am content.

(Of course I must acknowledge my parents, cause they never held me back with fear or caution.  This is a great rarity among parents, I think, and I am blessed.)

Giving and Taking

I just read the most magnificent blog post about how one church does the offering: http://www.wadeburleson.org/2012/11/thankful-for-giving-this-thanksgiving.html.  I really really really wish my church did this.  I wish all churches did this.

Many moons ago I was a 3-year-old in love with my older sister. She was my favorite person in the entire world and I would have sold my "beautiful blond hair" to be exactly like her. She liked me a lot too - until my mother naively allowed me to sit beside them while Mom taught Sarah to read.

Sarah has dyslexia and I don't. No one new this at the time, so just by sitting with them I learned to read within a few months, while Sarah didn't learn for another couple of years. It was at this point that Sarah decided she hated me, and she would continue to hate me for the next 15 years.

About a week ago I wasn't using my brain and I recounted this old family story to my 5-year-old niece who is currently learning to read. Tonight she popped in one of her reading videos, and after a few minutes I heard her say, "Mommy, you need to listen to this. You need to learn the sounds so you can learn how to read better and you can like Aunty Rachel."

That bit about getting married...

February will see me to 31, and I have no problem with that.  I didn't have a problem with 30, or with 29 before her, so why should 31 be any different?  I don't agree with the phrase "age is just a number" because I definitely experience different things with different ages...there are biological realities that simply pay no attention to cliches, and these things must be faced and, to some extent, embraced.  But I don't get panicky over the passing years or my changing body, so growing older doesn't bother me.  I like birthdays.  I like birthday presents.  I like birthday cards. (February 22, ya'll.)

The one thing that never changes as I age is my older, married, female friends' conviction that I'm going to get married someday.  I have reconciled the possibility of "spinsterhood" for myself, cause, frankly, I may not get a spouse.  I mean, I just might not.  I'm nearly 31 and no prospects*. And for me, that's okay.  I'm okay with my marital status.  But when I make comments like, "Well, I may not get married," my older, married, female friends jump in with

"Oh no, I'm sure you will!"
and
"I don't think singleness is what God has for you!"
and
"Don't worry honey!  There's someone out there for you!"

I...don't know how to respond.  I'm content; don't steal my peace.  Cause really sweet friends, I simply might not get married.  And I am perfectly, 100% fine with that.  Please let me focus on my present and not be distracted by a future that may never happen.

*A word to my friends: do not suggest online dating.  Just don't. Just.don't.

Sometimes

(though not all times)
I struggle to hold on
to all the good things
I believe about God.
It is rare I doubt the existence of God.
But,
the goodness of God,
the love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
and self-control of God...
somehow that's just harder to believe at times.

So I throw my body around it,
and cling to it,
like a child around her Daddy's leg.

"Yes, I will believe You."