Beware the Ides of March
My favorite day of March (because I'm a big English nerd) is tomorrow. I'm excited. I'm much more excited for it than for St. Patrick's Day because a) I'm not Irish, and b) I don't enjoy alcohol. However, the dinner should be fun.
My countdown to spring break has snuck up on me. The restless hopefulness of waiting for it suddenly appeared on Friday when I noticed that break is only two weeks away, three tests and three papers away. I'm excited for Easter, for the biggest family gathering we've had since I was eleven, for my Paris and New Mexico aunts, for home. I also have things here to look forward to until then, like the sleepover, the egg hunt, sg, etc.
***
My dad has been saying some interesting things to me lately. He is spouting out his condensed wisdom. He has a reason, though, after these turbulent years...
Dad: Remember- you were just born yesterday and now you're almost 20
Time is a crazy thing. Sometimes it speeds up and I feel like I can't do enough to hold on. Other times it moves so slowly I feel like I'm going to wither up if remains so stagnant. I feel like I'm always waiting for something else, but then I look back and revel in memories that I remember to be so ideal and wonderful when really perhaps they were ordinary moments that only seem extravagant in retrospect. My mind is marred with illusions. In a few more years I'll probably look back and miss college; I'll draw new lines that make these moments so much more worthwhile than they seem to be at present. Maybe there are joys which are so close to me that I am not aware of them and cannot be aware of them until they gain some distance... And then I'll miss what I didn't even know I had.
Dad: She forgets that you are coming home the 25th and we have to remind her- she asks each time we visit
Poor Nana. March 2005= 86 years for the two of them. I made them little blankets. He hasn't been doing so well lately. I forget, though, that in many ways we're lucky. I hope they have been blessed even in the past three years... So much has changed and rearranged since then, but as LL pointed out, not many people live to be 86 and not many college students still have their grandparents... J's grandfather shared my grandfather's birthday. He would have turned 83 or 84, but he died two days before... And his death put a few things in perspective for me. Part of me hates to see my grandparents suffering, but at the same time, their love for one another seems to transcend that suffering in a hopeful way. I wonder if God reveals his love in different places, in different ways for different people.
Dad: It is all just perspective
Is it? How so? How much so? Why? And how can we trust anything our minds or hearts tell us if all of it is just an illusion anyway? Which is why I've found that there is only One who I can trust, who I can seek, who I can try to live for...
***
Dad: And we put a lot miles on that wagon/sled. But it was worth it.
I have a wonderful father. I am growing up to be more and more like him... Did I ever expect to? I don't know... But I worry that I've grown too attached to my family. I would like to maybe live in some other part of the country and teach for a few years after college, but I also don't want to leave the comfort of home. I guess I already have left it in some ways... And while God's blessed me with a few rare sister-like friendships (and even a sort of mother-away-from-home) here at school, I miss the security of coming home to house full of people who are there at least in body for me to take comfort in. Will I always miss those things? Sometimes I feel full of loneliness, other times I feel like I'm floating because of the people I've come to know here. It's an unpredictable spiral that I've tried to resist but can only embrace. Surrender...
And the miles continue, but in different ways in different wagons... And I can only hope that it will be worth it.
My countdown to spring break has snuck up on me. The restless hopefulness of waiting for it suddenly appeared on Friday when I noticed that break is only two weeks away, three tests and three papers away. I'm excited for Easter, for the biggest family gathering we've had since I was eleven, for my Paris and New Mexico aunts, for home. I also have things here to look forward to until then, like the sleepover, the egg hunt, sg, etc.
***
My dad has been saying some interesting things to me lately. He is spouting out his condensed wisdom. He has a reason, though, after these turbulent years...
Dad: Remember- you were just born yesterday and now you're almost 20
Time is a crazy thing. Sometimes it speeds up and I feel like I can't do enough to hold on. Other times it moves so slowly I feel like I'm going to wither up if remains so stagnant. I feel like I'm always waiting for something else, but then I look back and revel in memories that I remember to be so ideal and wonderful when really perhaps they were ordinary moments that only seem extravagant in retrospect. My mind is marred with illusions. In a few more years I'll probably look back and miss college; I'll draw new lines that make these moments so much more worthwhile than they seem to be at present. Maybe there are joys which are so close to me that I am not aware of them and cannot be aware of them until they gain some distance... And then I'll miss what I didn't even know I had.
Dad: She forgets that you are coming home the 25th and we have to remind her- she asks each time we visit
Poor Nana. March 2005= 86 years for the two of them. I made them little blankets. He hasn't been doing so well lately. I forget, though, that in many ways we're lucky. I hope they have been blessed even in the past three years... So much has changed and rearranged since then, but as LL pointed out, not many people live to be 86 and not many college students still have their grandparents... J's grandfather shared my grandfather's birthday. He would have turned 83 or 84, but he died two days before... And his death put a few things in perspective for me. Part of me hates to see my grandparents suffering, but at the same time, their love for one another seems to transcend that suffering in a hopeful way. I wonder if God reveals his love in different places, in different ways for different people.
Dad: It is all just perspective
Is it? How so? How much so? Why? And how can we trust anything our minds or hearts tell us if all of it is just an illusion anyway? Which is why I've found that there is only One who I can trust, who I can seek, who I can try to live for...
***
Dad: And we put a lot miles on that wagon/sled. But it was worth it.
I have a wonderful father. I am growing up to be more and more like him... Did I ever expect to? I don't know... But I worry that I've grown too attached to my family. I would like to maybe live in some other part of the country and teach for a few years after college, but I also don't want to leave the comfort of home. I guess I already have left it in some ways... And while God's blessed me with a few rare sister-like friendships (and even a sort of mother-away-from-home) here at school, I miss the security of coming home to house full of people who are there at least in body for me to take comfort in. Will I always miss those things? Sometimes I feel full of loneliness, other times I feel like I'm floating because of the people I've come to know here. It's an unpredictable spiral that I've tried to resist but can only embrace. Surrender...
And the miles continue, but in different ways in different wagons... And I can only hope that it will be worth it.