Rain.

I can hear the rain pounding on the leaves a mile or two away, but it isn't here yet.

I can see the clouds, the confusion of precipitation bundled together, pushing on the verge of release, rolling, spilling towards my mountaintop.

It is like a dull roar, and a whisper all the same.

The drops of wet plop on the trees just over the ridge, for moments, and then recede, as though the clouds have realized we don't need them here. And so I hear the pounding roll away, but staying steady, beating the earth with its food, its drink. The leaves sway in gratitude and I hear the thunder roll its acknowledgment.

Too Much

Do you ever feel like sometimes your memory is too much?

I don’t know what triggered it. I was sitting out on my glorious porch, reading while the sun set gracefully over the mountains. My neighbor was watching a movie, Notting Hill, and I recognized the dialogue wafting through the open window. The last scene came up, the song “She” playing loudly when suddenly it hit me.

I got caught up in remembering one of the most glorious feelings that is mixed with so many emotions, I cannot tell which parts were real once, and which parts I made up in the recollection.

For all I can come up with, that movie has nothing to do with anything in my past.

This is the problem. I remember some moments so vividly and with such full-on clarity that, in the second of recall, I forget that the emotions spring from so many breaths ago, it's as though they should only come up as whispers, as shadows, rather than as expectations. Other moments I can scarcely bring into my periphery, even those that quite possibly changed everything.

How do our brains choose? How do our minds separate, categorize? Why will some things become reality, and others remain, long-distant memories?

You are not the only one who feels like the only one

I live in a town where I do not belong.

Sitting here, in this coffee shop where the windows are open wide and the man on the side porch is smoking weed, I do not belong. Sitting here, where the long-haired men in their tie-dyed t-shirts talk about climbing mountains and the women discuss their eco-clothing, sans bras, I do not belong.

Of course there are others here. Yes, the hipsters behind the coffee bar, in their plaid button downs and designer glasses-- a calculated carefree. He looks like Buddy Holly, but without the smile.

In my seersucker pants and monogrammed sterling bracelet, I do not belong.

But to tell you the truth? I love it here. I love to watch the people, to hear the conversations and the perspectives that do not match my own. I love the dogs sitting in the shade of the tree, a rough rope acting as a leash. I love that air conditioning is as unnecessary as makeup, and the way old ladies in over-bright outfits mingle with dirty-headed college students.

I don't belong necessarily, but I don't think they do either. I wonder at the beauty and divergence of humanity. We look at each other, stolen curiosities veiled as sweeping glances about the room. We judge, and perhaps we think we are all so very different; you in your dreadlocks, me in my carefully angled bob.

You're not the only one who feels the loneliness. You're not the only one who feels out of place. Don't we all feel that way? No, certainly not all the time. And no, certainly not in a way we speak aloud. We feel that way in the dark corners, in the blankets of night, in the quiet of our personal spaces.

Sometimes I feel like the only one, but it isn't true.

We share our humanity, and we are not alone.

Happy 5th Birthday, YouTube!

This one always makes me laugh.

We are a people with high expectations

So.

I was going to write a post about how friendships are seasonal, but Sara wrote something similar and deeply challenging, and I think you should read that instead.

Her thoughts on Expectations, here.

Then read her story because it will make you think twice, and probably even thrice, about complaining.

Emotional Porn

I read some really great articles today that have me wanting to expand on some of yesterday's comments, where I basically said that I find myself (and some of my friends) believing that a man will complete me. I didn't really get into the "why" of this concept, but here's an interesting theory:

Emotional Porn.

Uh huh, you heard me. Emily Timbol posits here that people--particularly women-- turn romantic comedy films into a source of emotional fulfillment, rather than turning to God for fulfillment.

Similarly, Cole NeSmith asks here: Is there really much of a difference in the hyperbolized sexual imagery of typical pornography and the hyperbolized momentary emotional high felt in a romance film or romantic comedy that sends us looking for “love” that doesn’t exist?

I am guilty of these things. We live in a world where healthy, godly, biblical relationships are a rare thing to behold. I'd guess that many of us did not grow up in families that we perceive as exactly what we want for our own futures. But we have images of what we want-- am I right? We have pictures in our minds of the kind of love we want to find and the kind of family we will create within that love. Are these fantasies based on biblical marriages that we witness or on our culture's interpretation of happily ever after?

I don't believe in soul mates, but I do believe in the kind of love that is challenging, the kind of love that asks you questions, that forces you to put someone else first, that has you giving more than you're taking. I believe in love when you don't feel like it. I believe in love that chooses.

There is hope for great love, adventurous love, captivating love. But I don't think it will play out like the movies, and in fact, I kind of hope it doesn't.

Suspension

About a month ago, I started a new job and last weekend I finally moved into my new place in this new town, and I'm spending most of my free time unpacking boxes and moving the sofa around to various locations. I like this change, I like my new place and I absolutely adore its view. My job is going well-- I feel challenged, encouraged and stretched into professional growth.

The mental transition, however, is not going so well. And this is precisely how I roll, which is not to say that I like it. Historically, I have enjoyed moving into new stages of life. I like settling in, decorating, discovering new places. I appear to handle it all so smoothly. I moved 2,000 miles across the country after college and acted all firm in those decisions, but in reality, there was a lot of turmoil involved.

Here's how this is playing out today: I'm in a new city, with a new job, with no friends in the area to speak of (yet) and suddenly I'm wondering what the hell I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I'm not even finished unpacking and I wonder what my next move will be. Not because I want to move, but because I do not yet feel the comfort of being settled. I spend a lot of breath telling my fellow single girlfriends that having a man, a husband, will not complete us. They will just be men and we'll have to spend a lot of energy and give a lot of love to make it work.

But, whenever I feel this odd suspension during major transitions--this aimless sense of wandering, I am extremely tempted to believe that once I'm married and we start having children, start settling into a particular life, that I will never feel this way again.

But that can't be true. Change and transition will always happen. Even, and probably especially, within marital and familial relationships. So feeling suspended will continue to happen to me in some form or another, no matter what human connections are built in the future of my life.

Is there a way to rid myself of this feeling? I believe the only way is to let myself feel it and then to move forward. For the moving forward part, I've made a list (loooove a good list) of practical things to do for myself, and another list of practical things to do within my community. Sometimes catapulting myself into projects is the best way to think through things.

Do you ever feel this suspension? How do you move beyond it?