change is the only constant ...

Well, hello there.

Wow.

What a crazy few months it has been since I last posted. My life has changed. I have changed. My days have changed. All for the better, for certain.

First, I'm gainfully employed again. Hallelujah! I started as a contractor 3 months ago at a marketing agency (here out referred to as The Agency) and 2 days ago went permanent with them. I'm blessed! It's a fantastic place to work and I work with some pretty fantastic people!

Second, 2 other girls and I used to meet weekly to pray and talk and generally do life together. In April, 1/3 of us moved. And not just moved, but MOVED! Like, to Japan moved! And in a week, another 1/3 of us is moving to Oklahoma. And I'll be here. In Kansas. Alone. Without my girlfriends. No, really, I'm happy for them. Couldn't be happier for them really. But I'm just sad for me. I'll miss them. I already miss them immensely. I have Rebecca- and Stephanie- shaped holes in my heart.

Third, my dad has been diagnosed with polymyositis. It's basically an auto-immune disease in which the immune system attacks his muscles. It's painful and awful. It seems to be progressing rather rapidly. He has a muscle biopsy coming up that will tell us a lot more about his prognosis.

Fourth, I've been asked by a friend I met in Alaska, who has become like a little brother in some ways, to write a synopsis of his music for his band's coming Myspace page. I feel honored and blown away and humbled all at the same time. I should be getting advance copies of some of his music next week or sometime soon to start this process. Talk about flattering!

This is all just a small fraction of my world lately. Figured I'd update this thing since it's been so neglected for so long. Hope to start getting back into the regular swing of things here on yasha.

dear mom (10 years later) ...

Today is 10 years since I last saw you and I just thought I'd share some things with you, that you may or may not already know. First, I just want to say how much I miss you - so much that it aches sometimes in places I never knew I had within me. I catch myself thinking about you or looking at the picture of you and me together that I keep on my dresser and struggle with the fact that 10 years have gone since I heard your voice or felt your touch or soaked in your laughter. It doesn't seem possible.

I find myself thinking lately about how much I regret. I regret the days I was too hard on you or caused you any pain in my defiance. I regret the time I wasted doing other foolish things when if I'd known you were leaving so soon, I would have spent them getting to know you and talking to you and listening to you. I would have spent more time memorizing you: the laugh lines in your face; the way you moved; your laugh when you found something really funny; how you suffered so much but never complained, taking each day in stride and living out your name - Faith; how you looked sitting at the piano every morning playing Fur Elise; or the joy you took in the simpler things. Forcing myself now to think back I can almost hear you but the more I try to remember the more the image fades from memory - like a dream when you first wake up. It makes me sad that I can't remember these things in much detail anymore. I kick myself for not paying more careful attention back then to the things I would 10 years later find more important. "Hindsight's 20/20," I imagine you saying now. And I know you don't hold any of this against me now, nor did you even then. It's just the way I feel and I suppose I need to someday reach the point where I can release myself from that and offer forgiveness to the girl I was back then.

I have healed in so many ways over the last several years (the last few especially - even the last ONE) from the wounds of a particularly painful childhood. Dad and I have a relationship that I never imagined possible for him and me. I suppose something shifted that day we watched you draw your last breath and being the only two in the room with you. We have done a lot of hard work through the grace of God and his work in us that has offered me much hope and comfort. We continue to grow and learn from each other and about each other, offering the other grace and forgiveness when one of us has unintentionally hurt the other, which happens much less frequently now than ever before.

I am learning so much about myself, about our family and its dynamics in my life, about God and grace, through careful and honest introspection and through relationships with trusted confidants that have permission to draw my attention to those things in my life that need some extra medicine. This group of people, a few women and dad, has been extraordinary and cathartic for my growth. I am so very thankful for their presence in my life and for taking on a role that I can only imagine would have been filled by you if you were still with me.

One thing I'm learning through various avenues is that I have become quite adept over the years at defending myself as a way of protecting myself. It has occurred to me that during my most formative years I did not have what I would call a protector, one to protect me from the world and from the lies its prince would sow and nurture in me. Dad wasn't a protector and you weren't a protector because you were trying to protect yourself. I get that, I really do. At least I get it now. But I remember countless nights crying myself to sleep wishing you would leave him and take us with you. Protect us. Be pro-active. Protect yourself better. Stand up for me. Stand up for them and for yourself. Use your voice. I prayed that you would leave him. When it became clear that you wouldn't, I used my own devices to protect myself that has left me defensive and scared in a lot of situations. Having learned from you I stayed in various abusive relationships of my own, not really knowing any other way.

Again, looking back now I am so thankful that you stayed. I know your last few years of marriage were some of your best and it's those years that I remember the most fondly. You and dad taught me so much about love and conflict (how to do them and how not to do them) by sticking it out that are invaluable lessons that likely I would not have learned had you thrown in the towel. And I can't imagine how my life would be different now had you done that. But I have to be honest here in a way I never have before and while I have certainly thought it several times over the last several years, I don't think I have ever said this out loud before. I was so angry with you over those things though I am not sure I was willing to see it and name it until now. But I think I've come to the place where I absolutely have to let go of that or it will tear me apart. I have spent the better part of the last 10 years feeling guilty for feeling that way towards you, like I was somehow dishonoring you even in death. Even now I struggle to write these words or to bring them out into the open. But hanging onto that won't bring me healing or freedom. So in an effort to bring this into the light, to finally give a voice to something has been a thorn in my side for 30+ years, and with anxious expectation that releasing you from this will also release me and bring me into a more abundant freedom: I forgive you. I forgive you for not protecting me and I forgive you for oftentimes making Dad "the bad guy."

Not only that but I also seek forgiveness. The Trinity is and has always been my Defender and I am sorry that I tried to cast you in a role that had already been filled. I am so sorry for any pain I caused you, and I know it must have been great at times. My anger and fear manifested themselves in many unhealthy ways. I don't offer that as an excuse or a means to justify behaviors I wish I could take back. Instead I offer that as a confession. I suppose many experts would say that every child or teenager goes through a period of particular defiance or rebellion and maybe they're right. I just know what I remember and most of it isn't pleasant. I wish I could remember more of the good because I know there must have been more of the good stuff than the bad. I'm not sure why my mind has chosen to remember the bad and not more good when most times you hear of people repressing the bad. I have to leave all of this at the foot of the cross for him to take and make something beautiful of it. And I am choosing to believe that he can do what he says he can do.

How I wish you were here to have an adult mother-daughter relationship with me. I expect we would meet for coffee regularly and I could tell you all the other ways I am changing and growing and becoming more and more myself, who I was created to be. There's so much I could and want to share with you and find out about you, we could sit for hours and talk if you were here. The Refiner's Fire burns hot these days but I am so thankful for it in a way. It's opened doors to beautiful new friendships and deepening older ones. I am so blessed by my friends and have a few with whom I share a special bond: we all know what it it feels like to grieve the loss of a mother too early, we know a little of what one of us might be feeling as we look back with our minds' eye to times that were simpler, and if not safer, then at least more innocent, times that found us in the arms of our mothers. Even though I may not see those friends as often as I truly would like, I can't deny that those bonds are some of the sweetest I possess. We often like to imagine out loud that our moms are all friends up there in Heaven watching us down here, interceding for us, grieving for us when mistakes we make bring loss in one form or another, and laughing with us when life enraptures us. How I wish that you were here and that their moms were all here and we could all go out for dinner together.

I wish for that and yet I know that can't happen and probably wouldn't have happened if you were all still alive. I am thankful for the rich and wonderful blessings your passing has afforded me. I long for you but can profoundly sense that my life would not be as rich. I imagine Dad and I wouldn't be as close as we are today. Some of the friends I share such special bonds with probably would not be as special to me, if we were even friends at all. Who knows in what other ways my life might have been less rich. While I miss you with every fiber of my being, I can't help but think that if you were here, would I be somehow missing these things that have brought so much beauty to my life because of your absence. Would that be the loss I was grieving today? I imagine so.

I love you, Mom. I miss you. Please give Becky, Debbie and Carolyn a hug and thank them for me when you see them and have a glass of wine together.

And for Becky, Debbie and Carolyn: Thank you so much for giving life to your girls and for setting them on a path that would one day lead them to collide with mine in ways that would affect my life for the better. Your respective daughters all mean the world to me and am so blessed by their presence in my life and can't help but think that this life would be less without them. You raised them well and beautifully and I can't help but imagine you teaching them all the grace and acceptance that they have shown to me in various ways. I wish I'd had the privilege of knowing you all before your passing but am content with knowing your girls and, in a way, knowing you through them. They continue to teach me about grace, love and beauty - lessons I'm sure they learned, in part if not in whole, from you. I look forward to the day when we can all, daughters and mothers, be together and laugh and share and have a glass of wine together. Until then, give my mom a hug when she comes to you. Thank you!

seasons ...

I am in a strange season right now. Much like the physical season we're in, this is a season of waiting, of shedding some proverbial leaves until I feel bare and ugly, of being quiet and looking inward. It also seems to be a lonely season for me and one with equal parts beauty and brokenness.

I can sense that I'm getting to the point at which the one thing I have so desperately held on to, the thing I have refused to let go of and let God handle, is not really mine to control. And it never really was. I have clung to it knowing that I could do a much better job with it than he could. The truth is, since I'm being completely candid here, I haven't done a better job with it, far from it. But it just hurts too much to give it up and trust someone else with it, especially someone I can't touch or physically see. I know, though, that the only thing left for me to do is to do just that. I don't know how to do it and the thought of it scares me. I don't know what it will look like but I'm also a little excited and can already feel some sense of relief and freedom in it.

What it comes down to is this (and I know this won't come as a shock to most of you as I've posted about it before in maybe not so many words): I have such an ache inside to be part of a marriage, to be a witness to someone else's life, and for someone to be a witness to mine, to share together all that it has to offer - the joys and heartaches, the mountaintops and valleys - and truly be together in every sense of the word. I want someone to fight with and make up with, someone who is willing to call out the areas of my life that need some light shed on them and then challenge me to grow in those areas, someone I can grow old with but still be young and childish with at the same time. I want to be able to reach out for someone's hand and know that someone will take it, someone who is more excited when I come home at night than my beloved boxer Sophie. I want in-laws to argue with. I want someone who will pray for me and cherish me. Someone who will CHOOSE me. God should be his first priority but I want to work toward being someone's second. This year I've had several attempts at finding that someone and so far all of them have failed. One of them is someone I work with and I, consequently, get the joy of seeing that person on a daily basis.

This has become such a huge part of my life lately it seems. I've had several friends / acquaintances in the last few weeks tell me they are engaged or having a baby. I am, no doubt, thrilled for them and would never ever wish them anything but happiness in their new chapters. But bubbling there just barely under the surface is this ugly part of me that aches and yearns for the day when I will call a friend and say, "Guess what? I'm getting married!" and have her scream her head off with excitement the way I do when I get a phone call like that.

But there's a dilemma even in that. Over the weekend I was doing lots of thinking. It came to the point where I was I actually trying to think of who I would call if I really truly needed someone (if my father died, or something equally tragic). And I honestly didn't have an answer. I don't know who that would be. It is true that I have siblings, 2 sisters, but don't really feel that I have that type of relationship with either of them, especially with one of them. The thought of not having someone to call hurts in parts of me that I hadn't been aware even existed. It wasn't always like that and perhaps that's why it hurts so much now. My best friend of 15 years and I recently had somewhat of a falling out that has left me deeply hurt, wounded and vacant. Over the last few years I have increasingly felt that our friendship was coming to an end and that it was actually somewhat of an abusive relationship on her part: self-seeking, self-serving, manipulative, and draining for me. This last encounter / disagreement with her really forced me to evaluate that friendship and, while I do forgive her, decide that I can no longer be her friend.

I do have several more "surface level" friends that I would like to go deeper with and I am in the process of evaluating those more too and deciding which ones I'd like to invest more in and take to a deeper level and which I can afford to let slide. I do have a few that are "deeper" but only see / talk to them sporadically and would like to find a way to change that if possible. I'm frustrated sometimes because I so often hear, "We need to have lunch. I can't wait to see you," and then when I ask "When?" I never hear from them again until the next time they say, "Hey, we should do lunch. There's so much to tell you." I'm tired of being the one that puts in ALL the effort. I realize that friendships require effort and some will be more give and less take at different times than others but I really don't feel it should be more give and less take all the time. I'm tired of not having anyone choose me. I really don't feel as though I'm a priority to anyone right now. Not first, second, third, or fifteenth. And it sucks.

I have taken matters into my own hands and emailed some women I work with and the wives of some of the men I work with and asked if any of them are interested in starting a book group. I'm hoping that will foster an environment where deeper, more meaningful friendships can take root. Lately I've found myself spending lots of time with the guys at work. It's always been easier for me to develop frienships with men. I'm not really sure why that is. I find comfort in having companionship with men but realize it's not entirely healthy. And it automatically almost always puts me in the "buddy" category with them, which is adverse to my ultimate goal. I know friendships with men can be a good and healthy thing but a lot of times boundaries end up getting clouded and things get confusing. So I think for me at this time in my life, friendships with women are a better bet.

I also find myself more and more recently pontificating on Alaska again, or cutting loose to somewhere else. I know I have a community in Alaska that knows and loves me. I know I wouldn't be as thirsty for friendship there as I am now. It would be so easy for me to just pick up and leave again. I know I have a place to stay up there and good friends. I would always have something to do, someone to hang out with, and not to mention the landscape that I have grown to love on a deep level. I am not making any decisions about this right away. It won't be like last time I up and left for Alaska. It's just something I've thought a lot about lately, among other things.

I'd just ask that you (whoever might read this) be praying for me in this season of my life.

this weeekend i...

* roadtripped to minnesota.
* had no agenda beyond spending it with a friend i hadn't seen since he took me to the airport in kenai, alaska in may.
* went camping at sacatah lake state park.
* did some hiking in the woods, by a couple lakes, and by minnehaha river/falls.
* cooked over a campfire.
* laughed... a lot!
* talked about life and faith and struggles and memories.
* watched bethel university beat the tar out of st. olaf in football on saturday under a gorgeous blue sky.
* drove with the windows down a lot.
* saw michael clayton (great movie!) "maybe we could talk about this somewhere else?" "oh, like where? in my car?"
* slept in every morning.
* had a fantastic omelette at hot plate in minneapolis. the potatoes were good too but not as good as our campfire potatoes.
* complained about the damn traffic noise killing my nature buzz.
* said out loud, "thank you, God, for this good life; and forgive us if we do not love it enough" and then found out that the daughter of the author of that quote (Garrison Keillor) is in my friend jim's second grade class.
* saw the wreckage of the I35 bridge collapse and said a quick prayer for those affected by the "tragedy of historic proportions."
* marveled several times at the beauty of god's creation and then had to remind myself that i am the pinnacle of his creation, the crowning glory; and that with each new thing he created, the beauty and wonder of the last one was outdone.
* felt at peace in my heart and at rest in my spirit the entire weekend.
* was able to just "be" with myself, in god's presence.
* wished i had brought my journal while simultaneously feeling relief that i didn't have it and, therefore, no pressure to feel i have to write in it. i could just experience fully what the weekend had to offer me.