I close my eyes and see the branches of a tree as paths. I see nerve systems stretching out. I see a root system, and feel compelled to choose just one single strand. But I cannot foresee which branches go where. Which nerves end sooner than the others.
Then I wonder, what if I am not a single branch, but a trunk? What if I am not a solitary nerve, but a brain. What if I am not one root, but a flower.
We graduate from high school, and our relatives, friends and acquaintances all come to us with the same question; "What are you going to do?"
I am a writer. An artist. A gardener. A cook. A teacher. A traveler. A lover.
How can I tell you what I will do? To do so would be to tempt fate. To limit myself. To limit God. When he is finished with me, I will not be able to count the names I will carry.
Destiny is something greater than our plans. My hope is greater than my logic, which I am thankful for because I've never had much logic to begin with.
I cannot tell you. Because I do not know.
I do know that all the paths, every branch, nerve and root, they make us stronger.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
A Post-Nicaragua Post
I am heart sick. I'm almost positive it is common place to feel as such when a person's heart and mind have been stamped with moments in time that may never leave them, ever.
The world is so big, you know. And I feel I have no guarantee that I will ever....I don't know...I feel as though I will travel a lot in my life. And there are so many places to go....But I won't allow myself to think that. I won't, that's all there is to it.
Changing subject.
I prayed for this boy on the last night. He looked around my younger brother's age. I prayed for God's protection in his life. Prayed that he would seek God before he sought anything else. I prayed for whoever his wife will be. I prayed that God would order his steps and grow him up into the man he was destined to be.
ugh and it is so frustrating to try to describe this to you. there are no stinkin words. and this is when i hate writing, when it just falls short. i can't translate it. I cannot tell you how it felt to know that i was there to witness a glimmer of God's love for this kid. To be privileged enough to speak words of destiny into his life. To be part of his story and His story.
I cannot tell you how it felt to have the image of a tear rolling down his cheek pressed into my heart like some surgical stamper with supernatural ink.
I just can't. It doesn't translate. And I wish to all the wells of goody-goodness in the world that it did. And I wish I knew why it doesn't. I so wish I could just open up my chest, press my heart to yours and share it with you.....maybe i wouldn't feel so stinkin isolated then. It almost sickens me that I have to keep it to myself.
I finished praying for him and there was a hand on my shoulder telling me we had to go. We weaved our way out of the weeping crowd and someone spoke in english saying how unfair it was, and colors and shadows whooshed by. We were in the airport heading home.
Is this what postpartum depression feels like? I feel like I was torn from something amazing. Something that was just beginning. I want to see it grow.
I heard a few different people say that this trip took 9 months for a leaders to plan and was therefor not unlike a pregnancy. And like 2 days before we left I had this dream that I was really, really pregnant. I was huge. And the dream continued all night. I would wake up and fall back asleep and have the same dream that I was about to give birth at any moment. And I know a lot of people think dreams are really hokey, and you all have my permission to make whatever you will of this, but I was talking to the girls on the team and several of them had similar dreams around the same time.
I think that this trip was the birth of something in Nicaragua. I think maybe that's why it hurts so bad. Cause the baby is all the way down there. In good hands, but still really far away.
And my team. I miss all the sisters I suddenly gained on that first night. On the first or second night after we got back home, i woke up in a NyQuil induced stupor and tried to figure out how all 16 girls were sleeping in my tiny room. Then I woke up a bit more and realized that my room is in Omaha, not Nicaragua and that all of my team were home in their own beds.
And thusly I am separated from the only people who understand what happened down there. Who I don't have to translate to.
This morning I woke up and couldn't find my ipod....Sheer panic, sheer bloody panic. I tore through the house overturning throw pillows and moaning. I growled and gnashed my teeth and interrogated my poor family as to the whereabouts of my beloved ipod and then felt stupid because I went the entire duration of the Nicaragua trip without my music......But! It is rather different here. There's nothing to do, really. One must resolve to create stick people from sticks on the front drive or sing to the african violets in their shoes, or stare at the deck ceiling until you've located the hornets' nest in a crack, just there, in the corner....And these things cannot be done without the proper reinforcement of music. That's just how it goes.
Ten minutes later I found my ipod. Everything in the world was a bit sunnier.
Since we've returned I've pretty much been listening to the same song on repeat almost the entire time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EIeUlvHAiM
it's gorgeous and oddly fits how I feel right now. Since I am separated from what i love, I have this single-minded determination to work my behind off till I am able to return to it. Today I signed up for my first spanish class ever in which I shall attempt to atone for all those years I idiotically took french because I thought it sounded like elvish. *shakes head* Sometimes, I am the queen of dumb.
But what's done is gone and all I have is what's before me. Therefore, I am gonna kick butt in these fall classes.
I feel like Ivy in The Village, going through Covington Woods, to go the towns...I think it's time to watch that movie again.
....this is all coming out some much more lamerrrr than it sounded in my head.
I wonder if I am loosing myself in translation.
I have so much more that needs to escape but I can't seem to remember it all and I'm having enough trouble accepting the sad quality of what I've written already....oh well.
The world is so big, you know. And I feel I have no guarantee that I will ever....I don't know...I feel as though I will travel a lot in my life. And there are so many places to go....But I won't allow myself to think that. I won't, that's all there is to it.
Changing subject.
I prayed for this boy on the last night. He looked around my younger brother's age. I prayed for God's protection in his life. Prayed that he would seek God before he sought anything else. I prayed for whoever his wife will be. I prayed that God would order his steps and grow him up into the man he was destined to be.
ugh and it is so frustrating to try to describe this to you. there are no stinkin words. and this is when i hate writing, when it just falls short. i can't translate it. I cannot tell you how it felt to know that i was there to witness a glimmer of God's love for this kid. To be privileged enough to speak words of destiny into his life. To be part of his story and His story.
I cannot tell you how it felt to have the image of a tear rolling down his cheek pressed into my heart like some surgical stamper with supernatural ink.
I just can't. It doesn't translate. And I wish to all the wells of goody-goodness in the world that it did. And I wish I knew why it doesn't. I so wish I could just open up my chest, press my heart to yours and share it with you.....maybe i wouldn't feel so stinkin isolated then. It almost sickens me that I have to keep it to myself.
I finished praying for him and there was a hand on my shoulder telling me we had to go. We weaved our way out of the weeping crowd and someone spoke in english saying how unfair it was, and colors and shadows whooshed by. We were in the airport heading home.
Is this what postpartum depression feels like? I feel like I was torn from something amazing. Something that was just beginning. I want to see it grow.
I heard a few different people say that this trip took 9 months for a leaders to plan and was therefor not unlike a pregnancy. And like 2 days before we left I had this dream that I was really, really pregnant. I was huge. And the dream continued all night. I would wake up and fall back asleep and have the same dream that I was about to give birth at any moment. And I know a lot of people think dreams are really hokey, and you all have my permission to make whatever you will of this, but I was talking to the girls on the team and several of them had similar dreams around the same time.
I think that this trip was the birth of something in Nicaragua. I think maybe that's why it hurts so bad. Cause the baby is all the way down there. In good hands, but still really far away.
And my team. I miss all the sisters I suddenly gained on that first night. On the first or second night after we got back home, i woke up in a NyQuil induced stupor and tried to figure out how all 16 girls were sleeping in my tiny room. Then I woke up a bit more and realized that my room is in Omaha, not Nicaragua and that all of my team were home in their own beds.
And thusly I am separated from the only people who understand what happened down there. Who I don't have to translate to.
This morning I woke up and couldn't find my ipod....Sheer panic, sheer bloody panic. I tore through the house overturning throw pillows and moaning. I growled and gnashed my teeth and interrogated my poor family as to the whereabouts of my beloved ipod and then felt stupid because I went the entire duration of the Nicaragua trip without my music......But! It is rather different here. There's nothing to do, really. One must resolve to create stick people from sticks on the front drive or sing to the african violets in their shoes, or stare at the deck ceiling until you've located the hornets' nest in a crack, just there, in the corner....And these things cannot be done without the proper reinforcement of music. That's just how it goes.
Ten minutes later I found my ipod. Everything in the world was a bit sunnier.
Since we've returned I've pretty much been listening to the same song on repeat almost the entire time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EIeUlvHAiM
it's gorgeous and oddly fits how I feel right now. Since I am separated from what i love, I have this single-minded determination to work my behind off till I am able to return to it. Today I signed up for my first spanish class ever in which I shall attempt to atone for all those years I idiotically took french because I thought it sounded like elvish. *shakes head* Sometimes, I am the queen of dumb.
But what's done is gone and all I have is what's before me. Therefore, I am gonna kick butt in these fall classes.
I feel like Ivy in The Village, going through Covington Woods, to go the towns...I think it's time to watch that movie again.
....this is all coming out some much more lamerrrr than it sounded in my head.
I wonder if I am loosing myself in translation.
I have so much more that needs to escape but I can't seem to remember it all and I'm having enough trouble accepting the sad quality of what I've written already....oh well.
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