I can keep plants alive. My purple phalaenopsis orchid has been with me for almost two weeks now and it is looking quite lovely. Apparently it really was my cats mutilating the beautiful greenery given me by Grandma.
Fruit must be perfectly ripe because if it is a day old or a day shy, I will not eat it.
I no longer need a job in order to be happy with myself.
Trader Joe's coffee beans are better than Starbucks any old day.
Ambitions:
It looks like I may not be attending college this semester due to some very poor communication on the part of my new community college and a very busy summer. An involuntary semester off is making me anything but zen-like and after my efforts have been exerted to get into the late-starting classes, I shall accept this and move on.
Pursue some dreams... there are a lot of things I would like to be working on and if I am not going to be in school, some specific art forms are calling my name.
Organize my home as best as I can. With very little storage and no money for additional purchases right now, I will do what I can to put my life in a well-labeled order and have to unpack at a more than leisurely rate.
Lastly--- find what makes me happy. An extraordinary moodiness has been floating around lately and it has grown quite dull. I am ready to breathe some fresh air!
If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.
We could start with the acceptable places - the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library - where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there, where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.
There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in. And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places. And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.
Start simple.
Things you may have previously based on your Avoid Being Alone principles:
The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone. Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.
When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner: a restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.
Go to the movies where it is dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community. And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you.
Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you.
Dance like no one's watching... because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.
Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.
Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there are always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might have never happened had you not been there by yourself
Society is afraid of Alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it. You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.
Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay 'cause if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.
It's okay if no one believes like you.
All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you. For this be relieved. It keeps things interesting and life's magic things in reach.
And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that community's not present: just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.
Take silence and respect it.
If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it.
If your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.
You could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it.
If your heart is bleeding make the best of it. There is heat in freezing. Be a testament.
A scene often repeated in my mind is a conversation between child-Rachel and grown-up-Rachel. They sit across from each other at outside a fast food restaurant holding dripping ice cream cones while child-Rachel wonders, "What changed?" Grown-up-Rachel realizes where this is going, but takes the bait: "What do you mean?" "I just thought I would grow up to be more, you know... cool." The dialogue goes on as the grown-up me reasons that things just are not as "simple" as they seem in childhood. College costs money. Traveling costs money. Becoming a better author, learning photography, musical instruments, and going on adrenaline-rush excursions to sky-dive and surfing all cost... money. They all cost time, too -- something that hit me as I crossed my twentieth birthday. Life also has surprises. Child-Rachel still does not know that her Nana is about to die from cancer and it will change her world forever. She does not know that while she will always have a soft-spot for the stage, writing is where she will feel most safe, most free, and even most vulnerable. Finally grown-up-Rachel offers, "Challenges and the unknown are coming. The plan will change, but it will become a story. And you, I promise, will not only get through it, but begin to grow into someone that you trust more than your ideals. Our story doesn't stop growing."
If all the world's a stage, then every day I am living my scenes. Great amounts of these have gone by with the mundane and necessary pushing them along. But there is a desire, a deep one, that is growing. There are dreams yet to be realized, people yet to be touched, and a great story in the making. One of the most sacred hopes I have held is the desire to go to attend either Oxford or Cambridge. Originally it was Oxford all the way... but I have found that the decision is not so easy nor is the task itself, so I shall chase my opportunities. The original plan took a detour from its crisp neatness when I opted for a year of ministry school before beginning college. It went even further off-track from "Rachel's Plan A" when I met the most wonderful man in the world while at school and spent the next year, dating, engaged, and getting married. Plan A was discarded and something more tangible, more real, more worthwhile, and requiring more reconciliation with child-Rachel developed. My husband and I are both pursuing double-majors and we just made a move from Texas to the west coast to live in the town and state in which we met and have missed. Community college is the stepping stone we are on now, which will lead to university, which will hopefully aid us in careers along our story-paths. There are travels to be had, books to be written, and eventually living abroad (hopefully where I will pursue my university aspirations) as a counseling team, writing, loving, teaching, and healing.
One of the reasons I very much want to attend the Living a Better Story conference is that I seek refreshment of every day story, every day choices, and every day scenes that go on as sub-plots to our lives. My heart needs inspiration to keep moving, to not see the grand goals of studying abroad, writing books that touch lives, and raising a family that has their own hopes and dreams as intangible possibilities, but inevitable results of choices well made and a life richly lived. Much of what stands in the way of these ideas is finances: money to go to school, money to live, money to travel, money to move. But Father God is the author and perfecter of our faith... and if he perfects something so simultaneously complex and simple, so meaningful as our faith, I know Father will produce this life He leads and make it a story worth sharing.
This post was inspired by a contest to win a trip to Don Miller's Living A Better Story seminar (link) in Portland. He is an author that has inspired some life-changing questions and conversations with my Producer and "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" embodied sentiments I have been struggling to express. I have made more decisions than I can count in pursuit of my great story and some of them have been wrong in more ways than one. In the interest, though, of pursuing a story all the same and learning along the way what it is to live a meaningful adventure with the time I have on earth, I would very much like to attend the seminar as a point of inspiration and refreshment.
If you would like to find out more about this conference, check out the following video:
Every person has a story. To some extent, we are the director, the writer, and the actors to our lives. Our choices indicate what scenes will arrive and in what order. We script our own dialogue and often coach it out of others. The private moments, the deep meaningful ones, are completely at our dispense. As we live it out, we follow Shakespeare's "As You Like It":
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.
Like an author about her characters, I have to wonder about myself: Where am I going? What am I doing? Who is a part of it? And so very intrinsically: Why? These are the questions I have been pondering in my heart as long as I can remember. Even as a child I knew that I wanted my life to be an adventure. Children are meant to be dreamers. There is an imagination level they have and because it tends to be curbed by time and experience, adults forget how to understand and value this gift. Childhood is the beginning, as every story must have. It is the the sweeping concepts, grand ideas, high hopes, and imagined impossibilities of the story of our life. Maturity constructs a storyboard from this and accepts that a story cannot be all highs in order to have depth. Maturity embraces adversity, frustration, growth, mistakes, and tragedy not as the end, but as the means for enriching character.
Living the adventure meant something a little different, although not wholly irrelevant, as a child. Unlimited by trivial details like finances and fears, I expected to have traveled half of the globe by this age of twenty, as well as conquering many skills such as writing, surfing, photography, bungee jumping, painting, skydiving, singing, scuba diving, sailing, para-sailing, guitar playing, piano playing, and playing with dolphins. Somewhere in that not-too-busy life, I was supposed to have already earned my bachelor's degree and be gliding my way toward a master's and doctorate in English, emphasis in creative writing, maybe double major in British literature. No sweat.
While I am still ambitious to accomplish many of these dreams (albeit somewhat modified and in a more reasonably time and manner), there are more pieces to this story than I had anticipated.
You might notice that I did not mention the producer in my introduction of roles. That is because it is arguably the most crucial role in all of this and I have chosen to relinquish that to the one who has my deepest affections. He has more experience and wisdom in managing life than I could ever hope and he has proven himself time and again as someone capable of handling my heart in a thoughtful way. Now and again we delegate roles in our story to others, allowing them to call the shots, either out of deference, humility, or fear. Eventually, we have to take those back on at some point, but with this one I do not intend to do so. It is my deepest desire (one so deep that I am often terribly afraid of it) to write, direct, and act out my life story in such a way, that it has substance enough to be produced. The one who loves and knows me better than I know myself gets the final word on my decisions and I want him to be happy with the final cut... that is exactly why I go to him in high hopes or tears: "So does this girl move to California or stay with her family in Texas? Where is the story going?"
Yesterday I spent some time contemplating what it would have been like to stay in Texas. Joshua and I both really miss my family a lot and eventually had to just stop talking about it yesterday in order to enjoy the trip. We are having a fantastic time now, but the feeling lingers that different paths are always available to us. We can make bad choices, good choices, great choices. And sometimes, it really is just a choice. What will you do with your life? Where will you go? What are your goals? Someone said something the night before we left that made me feel guilty about leaving and I had to wonder if the whole thing was a giant gesture of selfishness. Confessing this to my brother, I almost needed a release. He very calmly observed, “You’ve done this before. It’s where you’re supposed to go and you know that.” The heavy implication was the reality I have known in my heart since I was a child: I don’t belong in Texas. I just don’t. As big and wide as that sky is, it is somehow not big enough. And that’s okay. Choosing to move 1,800 miles away (and maybe eventually across an ocean) is not the choice to abandon relationships there. It is simply a selection of paths and this one carries me further away. It rips my heart out because I absolutely need those souls in my life and the more frequently, the better. But I also do not want to limit myself to a radius. The idea that the average person lives within a fifty mile radius where they are born is completely disconcerting and suffocating to me. Sometimes better opportunities lie outside of our radius but we feel safer within that space. (I acknowledge that sometimes the opportunities are not better or that the decision to stay is not always personal security, but those are two things that I am not willing to risk). So here I am. On this path. And today the music and lyrics of IO sang over me a proclamation…
Thursday through Sunday were spent sorting, packing, and cleaning our entire apartment. Thanks to some last minute help we were actually out by 10:30 (of course not to bed until midnight). I am still sore from all that work, but I am glad it is done. While we did actually get out, we are not finished with our list. Lately, I've been feeling pretty out of it and it is definitely due to lack of sleep. I am torn between rest and my to-do list, knowing neither can be satisfied with this week's schedule of working, trying to schedule time with friends, hanging out with my family, plus all of the other things bound to arise like laundry, repacking, planning, etc.
The busy-ness (busyness, business, bizness) has continued to be my shelter from that feeling of leaving... again. It is an emotionally tense place to live, but I have not found another solution. I just need time to slow down (or maybe speed up?). I want it to be over, I want it to never come. I want to drive away, I want to stay forever. I have so much to do, I just want to relax. I reside in that comma.
New discoveries:
I find that I have to psyche myself up for infinite moments. Like, driving down the road is just a commute unless you turn on your favorite music, light up, and roll down the windows even though it is raining. Suddenly something routine becomes rejuvenating.
Ben and Jerry's "Everything But The..." is my new favorite comfort food.
I am finding that I like to be "necessary". Self-esteem issue? Maybe. I'm working on it.
Sometimes friendship grow with change and sometimes they fade. Mostly though, relationship change with change. The dynamic that worked in the past may not continue, but it can still be beautiful.
We are moving forward. Days are dragging on, but somehow weeks are flying by. We are down to eighteen days remaining. Eighteen. I just cannot believe how close it is.
It has been an overwhelming few months, but I am starting to see the finish lines to what has been eating my time, energy, and attention. Knowing that there are reasonable chunks of tasks that can be completed and will be coming to a close brings a lot of peace of mind. Monday signals the end of my school year. The following Sunday is the Official Move Out Day. The weekend after that is my last day of work at GBBC and Hunter's graduation. And two days later, we're leaving.
Just like that. Leaving.
My emotions are all over the place but my busyness has helped me stay distracted from that topsy-turvy nervousness and the sadness at leaving my family behind again. Family is the hardest group of people to stay with and the hardest people to leave. My sight is becoming blurry with stinging, salty tears as I type this, particularly thinking of leaving my siblings behind because as we grow up, we change so much and so quickly. The year I was gone it seemed that all of them became different people. I just do not know how to miss those moments in their lives and be okay with it.
I'm talking about the moments that make you who you are: when you tell a bad decision no, or say yes to a mistake and grow from it, or have the best night laughing with friends (the kind you remember for always), or any number of those times when you feel "infinite" and it becomes what molds your memories. So many people do not get to love their siblings the way I love mine. When I say I would die for them, there is no hesitation in my heart that I would give every last thing I have to save them, help them, grow them. Each is such a unique person with incredible talent, beauty, and destiny. And if you've met them even once, even briefly, you know that too. How do I just get in a car and drive away? How do I move forward with my life, knowing that they are moving forward with theirs and it might not be in a parallel direction anymore?
As long as I have known these four incredible people, we have all been moving in the same direction: up. We were growing up, from one grade to the next, from single digits to double digits, middle school to high school, up clothes sizes... just up. But I hit it first: that place where things are not moving "up" so much as across. Getting older is leveling out just a bit and I am making choices for my life that move me out and forward. Hunter is beginning to do the same and now every other year, so will each of the others. So as we move out and forward, can we still be together? Can we still be connected? Can we avoid the awkward quiet and fumbling for conversation that comes between normal friends after extended time apart? Can we still be involved and interact without having that deathly distance kill the intimate camaraderie that is so unexplainable and so rare? I hope so. God, with all my heart, I hope so. Because these are the people I love the most and I know my life would fade so quickly and lose so much color if something were to tear us apart.
There it is. That's the hardest thing about leaving. I feel like I am abandoning them and it's hard not to hate myself for it. It's not comforting to be told that it will "all be okay", that I have to go my own direction because it's "natural" and "healthy," that our relationships will be fine, etcetera etcetera. I'm supposed to be here. I'm their older sister who has done her very best to love them, protect them, and encourage them amidst her own chaotic learning. I have made mistakes, but I do not love them any less or want to be away from them anymore.
I will be okay. I know I will because I have been before. But today it just hit me and my independence tastes more bitter than sweet through these thoughts.
{So if any of you darlings read this, I love you. I love you so very much, with all my heart, and I always will. I'm here for you no matter what, no matter when. Forever. -Your Sister}
Riches I heed not nor man's empty praise Thou mine inheritance now and always Thou and thou only first in my heart High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art
This week has been a blur of sleepy-hungry-overwhelmed. While I enjoyed some of the most beautiful moments with precious friends this week (the kind of necessary moments that remind you that you're alive and happy to be so), the pressures of school, work, and moving are starting to close in. I really have tried recently to be more focused on school so that I finish stronger than I started. One of my grades is not doing so well and I am giving it this last push to try and bring it up (i.e. immediately working on my in-progress project when I got home after six last night and not finishing until midnight). When I get overwhelmed, if I can just sit back for one minute I hear the Lord telling me, "Not much longer. You can do this." It's the sentiment my husband echoes in such gentle, understanding tones as I struggle to balance the demands on my time, attention, and emotions.
This morning was an early one as usual since Joshua and I are sharing the Jeep until further notice. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the moon still round and yellow, hanging around to say that the night went by too quickly. My mind is somewhere back in that moment, I think, because it has not yet caught up to me. Work is quiet and empty today so I am doing boring old bookkeeping, which practically drives me insane. And as I think about how I feel so ragged, so worn, so used up, it hits me: there is a difference between taking a break and genuine rest.
"Taking a break" brings to mind half-time in a sweaty, athletic match or the deep breath you take between one task and another. It's the pauses we take to survive. But when I think of "rest", I think of soft moments relaxing in the park, drives with the sunroof back, and reading with my feet kicking the air behind me. Even the memories I have over past months are not "rest." They are like sleep: necessary for existence, but not always rejuvenating. I need rest: continuous moments where my mind and heart are at peace and unity with my Father, just absolute bliss in knowing I am loved, approved of, cared for. There is something in a daughter's heart that needs to be spoken to saying that she is secure and okay and that all the messes, mistakes, confusion, and victories are accounted for and accepted. I crave it so deeply that I was in tears on my drive home yesterday, wordless, just lonely for that communion. I truly cannot live without it. Survive, yes-- but live, thrive, rest? No.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Recently I have been musing over how expectations deeply affect our lives. To some degree, they are the standard to which we hold ourselves or others. Expectations take us to the height from which we must fall if the plan changes and disappointment sets in.
I simply cannot see any benefit to expectations.
Of course, I must clarify my "definitions" in order to make such a broad statement. Expectations are not Hope. They are not a moral standard. Simply put, they are a belief or mental picture about how something "should" be. It is an excuse for disintegrating relationships when someone does not turn out "as expected." It is the reason that a perfectly normal day seems like a bad one because it did not turn out "as expected." So much damage happens as the cost for failed expectations; we become selfishly disappointed that someone did not do as we expected them to and, sadly, take offense that their decisions do not reflect our expectancy. Life, like Relationship, is ever-changing, always growing, and generally un-Expected.
The counterpart to expectations, if you will, is Hope. Hope anticipates good things, but is not crushed if the scenario changes. Hope is tied closely with love because it will expect good things no matter what. If the entire picture crashes to a thousand pieces, Hope still says that "The best is yet to come." It is not simply optimism; it is a deep assurance that when something does not turn out as expectedthat all is not lost. The relationship Hoped for can adjust and grow to meet both participants' needs. All of the circumstances that have not played out according to plan are not a loss; they are tools for an unseen win.
Let's stop coloring each other with our own preferences and accept each other's differences, dreams, and (expectations forbid) even mistakes as a part of this fluid, layered picture.
We've got less than five weeks until we drive out and and less than four to be out of the apartment. School and work are going to be coming to a close, so there are loose ends to wrap up there.
-get up the guts to take cats to the shelter (I'd like to pretend I have no affection for them, but it's not entirely true). -make a meal plan and grocery list that will help get rid of remaining food -start packing -clean the house -search for/find jobs -search for/find apartment -somehow resolve or ignore family drama -finish planning CA trip details (this is way more complicated than it seems) -work on school projects/papers
The fun part -find some way to enjoy this incredible weather -possibly plan a friend's wedding shower -try to get quality time with everyone before we leave
Familiar routine: laugh and love then for no reason at all, shut down; become a cold, calculating statue of a human. Cause pain and frustration in order to assuage your own.
I don't know how to break this cycle and a recent reading of "Perks of Being a Wallflower" reawakened that little piece in me that held so many infinite moments dear. It is as if this soul curls and dries like a faded rose when there is nothing to live for. I want to be deeply poetic and meaningful as I describe how I feel but I've learned to live without words. Sixteen year old me would find this devastating. Somewhere inside, I think twenty year old me does too, but I don't feel much. A writer without words is merely a ghost of who she should be.
But that's how I've been. A moving, breathing phantom because I have forgotten how to do exactly what I was born to. And I might argue that I have even forgotten what exactly I am to do. Sometimes when my heart hurts and I cry, my soul wakes up a little bit. Feeling gives me words. But by the time I make it to keyboard or paper, it has shriveled and I feel more empty than before.
Also, having a C in an English class really makes me feel worthless. I know I should have more intrinsic value for myself than grades by now, but dry seasons really leave a person looking for meaning in anything.
Looking over recent feelings, posts, scribblings, and memories, I have really come to believe that the last couple of years have been wave after wave of conflict. Sometimes it rolls in steady and bearable like the ocean ought. But there is rain and there are hurricanes; sometimes these last for weeks and sometimes they pass in hours. All the same, my life has greatly resembled this metaphoric ocean in both storms and showers. Conflict carries a corrosive connotation and for good reason. It chisels down past the good hair days and nothing to wear days right to the dissatisfaction of your soul. Giant rocks of insecurity get broken down into bits of sand. Every so often one of those turns into a jagged stone that catches skin and makes you bleed. But you still bleed red. You still feel pain. While the storm cares not, you know that you still feel and sometimes that really is consolation.
So the salty air blows and the wound burns and heals. It forms soft new skin that is easily pierced again. I could really take this metaphor too far, but someone wise once told me that the best use of metaphors is to drop them sooner than later. It would be a nice little wrap-up right now if I could say that "I only have one question and it is..." but I have half a dozen at least. One day, perhaps, there will be resolution. But for now the storm of confusion and frustration rages on and leaves an awkward mess in its wake.
Six weeks from tonight I will be married. My name will be Rachel Dobler. I will wake up the next morning and every morning after next to my very best friend. Mm, I can hardly believe it!!
Over the weekend, I had some interesting thoughts about hope and how it's so easy to lose. That's an odd thing for a young bride to say with her whole life before her, but be honest. Doesn't hope feel like an illusive thing sometimes? Even when plans are going smoothly, it's hard not to wonder what might go wrong or even to get complacent in that secure rhythm. And when circumstances are hard, it's difficult to keep one's chin up and remember to breathe. What I felt in my spirit was this awakening to the responsibility to keep hope alive. In relationship and in life, it is vital that we engage in order to grow and to fulfill ourselves and one another. But the price to be paid for hope is creating, wishing, waiting. Really, it's like preparing one's heart and laying a foundation for faith. It is costly to risk, but is it not more costly to sacrifice my joy in the smoke of cynicism and fear? Phrases from Scripture echo like "love, power, and a sound mind" and "do not be anxious" and "faith is the assurance of things unseen." Hold on to hope.
As for the wedding, it's taking form, becoming less idea and more reality with every day of option-exchange and planning and decisions. Two weeks ago we officially set the venue for Lockheart Gables. The week after that, we picked up the invitations from the printers. And hopefully soon, one may show up in a mailbox near you. Lockheart Gables is really going to be ideal. When Mom first showed me the website I thought, "B&B? Does it GET cornier than that?" I went and saw it having already written it off but praying that it would be the right one just so we could stop searching. Sure enough, they let us tour two days before our appointment, we talked to the owner David (my dad's name) and heard about his wife Marilyn (my Grandma's real non-Grandma name) and how she collects teacups (like my Nana did). I really liked the place immensely despite the house's very frilly contrast to my earthy vision and let my eye imagine what could be. Once I saw the outside area under the harboring shade of full, leafy trees, I knew we'd found it. With a waterfall as a backdrop and green grass for my to-be bare feet, my earthy garden fairy-like dreams could come true.
Now, I'm scheming up decorations to accent the natural beauty and centerpieces to coordinate with the very influential help of friends. It's the minute details that I have such a hard time with... how to get it all done by that day and on that day is the real challenge. Mom remembers everything I forget and if she doesn't, someone else does. So the chaos of the unknown is giving away to deposits, deadlines, and dress alterations.
Peace, love, and centerpieces.
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us."
There once was time in my life to just sit down and write. Write thoughts, write poetry, write stories, papers, even single lines that could develop into anything. And the words must not have stopped; it was most certainly me. The passion still lies there within, dormant, but there. It flares up every now and again when I write a letter or even in the occasional blog, but I feel like it is all shadows of those inner staircases that lead to libraries of things I should be writing.
Tonight I realized that much of that is because I have nothing to write for... no homework, no audience, no critique, no assignment. I'm too critical to be my own audience so I shut myself down before I can finish. I've deleted this entry three times already, exited the browser, and come back simply to have something to say.
And that something is this: I have nothing to say but wish I did.
I put this on my wedding blog and figured I might as well spread it out around my silly little blogging world. I need to make a note that I am going to switch blogs whenever Joshua and I get married in order to make that fun transition, plus I've been wanting to change my email address (I'm getting too much spam 'cause it's an old one) and it's a good time to do that as well. I'll spread the info sufficiently around whenever it happens.
**
Let me preface this paragraph with a minor disclaimer: I am absolutely thrilled to be getting married! I never realized what a difficult season engagement was going to be. Of course it is not due to the engagement itself but all that comes with it. Essentially, we are starting life over together and all of our expectations our coming up, being verbalized, having plans put to them, and making compromises here and there. The hand of God is so obvious when we have these vision-based conversations about our life, our family, our hopes and our hearts resound together and just as much so when there are variances in opinion but we work through with grace and communication.
Everything from apartment hunting to phone plans to car insurance has been a decision factor lately and I've been on the job hunt here all the while knowing I'll be doing this again in 6 months or so in California. Wedding plans have been reinstated post-holidays and I'm looking at another location this week to find out if I want to seal the deal at the gardens or move on. We are more than ready to get an official date set and hoping against hope to bump it up to May. I'm working on designing a monogram to potentially be used on invitations and definitely on the program (that I've already finished).
We've been updating the Bed, Bath, and Beyond registry, going over our picks, making adjustments where needed. Last night Joshua did his "man registry" at Lowe's and was the most fired up I've seen him about any plans so far. My favorite thing though is our cash registry we're supposed to modify soon at OurWishingWell.com. It is really going to help us considering that we will be moving across the country and will not want to carry more with us than necessary.
In other news, it will be absolute heaven to roll over and say "good night" instead of grabbing my keys and saying "goodbye." One of my friends once described her first year of marriage as "one big slumber party." I laughed (both of us knowing it's more challenging than that) but as much fun as Joshua and I have, I believe it.
Today was our first Christmas together and it was absolutely precious. For Christmas Eve, we spent time with the family and went to our family friends' house for their big get-together. We had a great time playing "dirty Santa." Joshua ended up with a very useful $25 to Home Depot and I snagged an oil burner and a Christmas decoration to be added to my budding collection. (Over the recent months, Joshua has become acquainted with my family's Christmas craze and realized that his future wife pretty much takes the cake on Christmas Queen). On our way home, we stopped at one of those synchronized Christmas light shows and then proceeded with family tradition of our myrrh, frankincense, and gold gifts.
Family Tradition #1: As a way to keep the gift-receiving part of Christmas in a healthy mindset, my parents started this three-gift tradition. 1. Myrrh was an embalming ointment given to Mary and Joseph at Jesus' birth, valuable and a prophetic symbol of how He was born to die that we may live. The gift that goes with this one is something having to do with the body, perfumes, clothes, makeup, etc. 2. Frankincense was another gift, known as one of the premiere "cure-all" treatments and it was designated to be burned in God's temple. This one always relates to the individual's relationship to Father, often worship CDs, a new Bible, devotionals or even allegorical books. 3. Gold, the last of the mentioned magi gifts, was obviously the most general and valuable, and our gold gift is usually something of great importance that the receiver really wants.
Family Tradition #2: This one is an old tradition on my mom's side of the family. At midnight between the 23rd and 24th, the first person to call "Christmas Eve Gift" gets to open one gift a whole day earlier than everyone else. As a rule, I win this. Every so often, I grant the privelege to someone else, but let it be known that out of all my competitive family, I dominate. Haha, so I'm joking. But, really. I do. Needless to clarify, I won this year too. I will never outgrow this tradition.
Me Tradition #3: Laying awake on the 23rd and 24th because I cannot sleep because of all of my excitement... I love, love, love gifts. I also like surprises in the sense that I enjoy being surprised (however, the NOT KNOWING of it all drives me crazy) and I truly enjoy the reaction on others' faces when they open something from me.
We ended up persuading the parents to let us open the gifts from each other as well (all of us kids draw names and then go in on stuff for mom and dad. Hunter drew Joshua who drew Hannah. Ashtyn and I got each other). We had so much fun with every one sitting around getting excited for each other and ourselves, sharing in joy and family. Joshua and I were super stoked to get the cookware from our registry. It was a huge contribution to our household as we both enjoy dabbling in the culinary arts. Also, a pizza cutter, measuring spoons and cups were a few more everyday items that tickled our to-be-wed fancy. Included in what I gave Joshua was a DVD I made with a video of his proposal and four slideshows (our lives together, the day of the proposal, the proposal event itself, and our engagement photos), complete with sweet iDVD menus and customized buttons, scene selection, and music. I'm pretty proud of that one, not gonna lie.
Today we ate breakfast, opened stockings, and played with "Dad's" new Wii Rockband waiting for friends to join use for lunch. Food, games, and movies comprised our fun-filled day. Now I am half-watching "The Incredible Hulk" as "the boys" play with Joshua's Batman action figure sliding on dental floss from second story to front door (indeed, boys will be boys).
As I look forward to the future and all of the wonderful, sweet Christmases Joshua and I will enjoy, I have to admit that I very much appreciate and covet this one. Sometimes the stresses of life cave in around the holidays and it all seems like too much. But family really is priceless and I jealously bottle these moments knowing always that "this too shall pass" applies to both good and bad. Thank You, Jesus, for a day to celebrate everything beautiful.
Today I was working on our wedding website writing my side of "our story" (the page will be up once Joshua has written his perspective). It got me to pondering a lot of things like how I came to realize Joshua is "the one." I ended up adding some of this into the story:
As humorous as our beginning is, there's really a lot of weight to it. I remember a time in the prayer house echoing a prayer I'd prayed a hundred times already. "Papa, is this You? I don't know how to be in a relationship halfway, so I need Your release. A no is a no, a yes is a yes, but I need something concrete. I want my heart to be MORE Yours, not less." Clearer than clear I felt, "What do you want?" "What do you mean? I just asked YOU that!" "Rachel, I don't make your decisions for you. This is a relationship you and I are in. You choose to be with me just as I've chosen to be with you. Is this the man you choose to be with?"
That question rang in my heart for days. I laid in bed one night telling my roomie about the conversation, mulling it over, what did it mean, what was my answer. The truth I kept returning to was that in the highs of life -- enjoying simple things like cooking together or more extravagant joys like our wedding day or the birth of our children-- and in the lows --disappointments, disagreements, frustrations, miscommunications-- the choice would remain. I could not base my choice on feeling like I was in love, in like, whatever. Love is a decision, a resolution, a covenant. It grows deeper with time and richer with experience. That's why I don't buy into the "just wait till the honeymoon phase is over" propaganda. Life is, love is what you make it.
That was only the beginning of His revelations to me about relationship- relationship between man and God, man and woman, person and person. It's so deep, so sacrificial, so genuine. It is not about the individual but the two, the pair, the "us": interacting, loving, sinking low in order to raise another, the ups, downs, victorious days, and even the very human moments. As He shared His heart with me over the last nine months, I realized that Joshua was the choice I wanted to make. I wanted to build a relationship that was so solid it wasn't shaken by days lacking feeling or flowing over with emotion. Relationship is meant to be rich with life, love, covenant. Passion ebbs and flows, but it shouldn't cease. It moves and grows with life.
Choice. Choice, Choice, Choice. Choice. But how to love? Once the decision is made, sweet Jesus, how do I love? You're so Good at Love. It's Who You are, not what you do. How can I communicate the same Love You give to me to Joshua? Once again, He spoke, "Your decision to love will often be refined in the heat of moments, moments when you cannot love of yourself but of Me. But where your love will flourish most is with Me, in Me. Love Me. I am perfect Love. Learn to love an imperfect being by learning to Love me. I will always respond to your gestures, always tell you how beautiful you are, always have a kind word, and never respond out of circumstance. And view it this way, daughter. You can learn love from me and then practice it the way that I love you. I love you, someone who is growing, struggling, falling, and gaining. In that same way, you are given the opportunity to love Joshua. Be perfected in love."
In June I was reading the Rob Bell book "Sex God." In it he writes: "Your strength is a beautiful thing. And when you live in it, when you carry yourself with the honor and dignity that are yours, it forces the men around you to relate to you on more than just a flesh level. You are worth dying for." He ends up going on to ask a series of questions to the [female] reader about the man she's dating and if he makes her feel that way. As I read, I cried, realizing all those doubting questions were melting away.
Joshua is gold. He is so different from what I always imagined and he is everything I never knew I needed. I thank God for His sovereignty and precious love to know me better than I do, to give to me a way to love like He does and a way to feel the love that He has for me in yet another way. How blessed am I that the Love of my life cares for me so richly, so deeply, so unconditionally that He had it in His heart to share all of Joshua with all of me?
If you are chilly, here take my sweater Your head is aching; I'll make it better Cuz I love the way you call me baby And you take me the way I am -Ingrid Michaelson, "Way I Am"
So yesterday was by far one of the most beautiful days of my entire life. It began with my sisters bringing me an incredible breakfast in bed (cinnamon raisin french toast, frozen fruit parfait, scrambled eggs, eggnog hot chocolate, and orange juice) prepared by my adorable, thoughtful boyfriend. I was given an invitation sealed with wax that gave me my itinerary for the day, requesting I join my "host" for a day of "arts and culture." I was told to dress appropriately for the weather as it would be sunny with a high of 61 and very windy. Also, I was given a video camera and digital camera to borrow for the day's use.
A couple of hours later (plenty of time to shower and prepare) Joshua picked me up and we headed for the Kimbell Art Museum. They didn't have any extra exhibits open but we looked at their own collection and walked around the outside gardens a bit. We went to Jimmy John's for lunch and had some great laugher and conversation. I ended up making a request to switch out the Modern Art Musuem with "007: Quantum of Solace" (very "arts and culture," I know). Either way, we enjoyed the movie. Originally the plan before the movie was to go to the Fort Worth Water Gardens for sparkling cider and chocolate (no wine for the underage, heh) but it was such a blustery day that we sat in the car and looked like winos laughing and filming ourselves drinking bubbly stuff.
Finally, after a day of pleading and teasing to try and discover what the "mystery dinner reservation" was, we were headed there! I pestered him the whole way but he wouldn't relent especially since I had "like three seconds to find out." Whatever. We parked on the far side of a building on Camp Bowie and I thought that the coffee house we'd pulled in front of must have some really grand surprise. But we walked right by it and I was thoroughly confused. Instead we descended into the basement of the Italian Inn. It was a unique dive and I was thinking that dinner looked like it was going to be a lot of fun. Little did I know that when the waitress got his name and said she had "something special" it would mean a room full of my close family and friends!
Completely shocked (and I mean completely!) all kinds of emotion flooded my chest and head. I looked at Joshua, swung my gaze around the filled room, and stared at my parents. As I returned my eyes to Joshua's, he began to talk about how everyone in the room had been a part of my life in some way that was really important and he had wanted them there to share in this very important part of our lives. As he got down on his knee, I thought my heart would explode. Even writing this, my eyes are welling up with tears. Then he asked me if I would spend the rest of my life with him.I said "YES!!!"Family is everything.
The details: Yesterday was actually my Grandpa and Grandma Carrigan's wedding anniversary. Italian Inn is where my parents got engaged twenty-something years ago. My ring belonged to my Nana who gave it to my mom who passed it on to me.
A fun note: Joshua had a whole speech prepared (that of course went out the window and boiled down to the most simple, meaningful words) and when he panicked, he put the ring on with my purity ring still under it, so in some of the pictures you can see me wearing one super long ring and not bending my knuckle, haha.
P.S. I will post the video on Facebook and/or Youtube when it's edited. Pictures are to come... they will both be on Facebook and our wedding website.
