Whirlwinded

The sky is still blue. People still walk around town. Oxygen still flows into human lungs. Yet, I feel the world has spun on a completely different axis this past week. So many different thoughts and emotions flowing in my blood like oil and water trying to mix--joy, sorrow, shock, imagination, exhilaration.

Daylen taking me out to surprise dinner after my internship!

Joy

My internship is over. I will never again fill in the "student" bubble when asked my occupation. I'm an official "Master" and yet I still feel like I need three more solid years of apprenticeship. In moments that demand instant exuberant celebration, I usually stand stunned in a surreal stupor. The magnitude of the moment doesn't really hit me. That's how I felt bidding my fellow student intern farewell in 102 degree heat. I still felt like I'd see her at 8am the next Monday. I didn't. I probably will never see her again. We'll both be new graduates job searching in our own corners of Missouri. 

Sorrow

Colorado. 

Need I say more? 

I've never been more emotionally impacted by a national tragedy. Not even by 9/11. No, I didn't know anyone there. No, I've never even been to Aurora, CO. But I know people who live in Colorado. I've driven through Colorado and visited different parts more times than I can count. It's always felt like a portion of home because it's Wyoming's sister state. When things happen in Colorado, it feels like they're happening in my tiny secluded Wyoming valley.

The fires in Colorado Springs were tearing my heart apart, but the final blow came at the news I heard at 6am after the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. My dear precious friends. My heart aches for you. My prayers yearn for your comfort and healing from the pain that you must be experiencing--pain far beyond "This was saddening" or "this was shocking news". I know there are no words, so i will not try to write them. I am so deeply sorry.

Shock

I found myself in Wyoming on Saturday--a surprise from my husband for my completing graduate school. Three hours in to our 20hr drive, I figured out he was taking me to my family. They didn't know--it was a surprise for all. My brother ran up and tackled me. My mom screamed and then cried and then screamed a little more. My little sister said something in a decibel I couldn't understand. My older sister and her husband laughed a little and said, "Hey!". Dad was in on it. He got lots of kisses.

Home was glorious, slowing down time like a tired merry-go-round. My valley rarely changes, and when it does it's for the better--new brick sidewalks with umbrella seating, longer coffee-shop hours, growing unity in the churches...

Life picks up where I left it. I felt like it was December again and my wedding was only a day away; everyone was celebrating, but that's just how my valley is. People celebrate because they see the joy in life. The joy in Christ.

Imagination

I've started reading Harry Potter to Daylen--it makes a long drive go a lot faster. I grew up reading the books over and over, unable to get enough of the imagination behind the stories. I was too young to understand the controversial issues that rose about Harry Potter and Christianity. If not for J. K. Rowling's books, my imagination would be a lot younger, shorter, and sadder. She inspired my writing. I have no problem saying I'm a believer in Christ and a fan of the Harry Potter series. 

I read the books to my younger brother. Then to my younger sister. Then to my Mom. Now I get to read them to Daylen and it's like reading them for the first time all over again. He sees all the little details like I did. He remembers characters, laughs at the jokes, and genuinely delights in my joy.

The result? My imagination has exploded into the summer sky.

Photo taken during our drive back to Missouri.

Exhilaration

This is where I stand now. I've been doused in Joy, Sorrow, Shock, and Imagination. This unusual soul-stirring mixture leads to writing inspiration. When I feel, deeply, writing overflows from me in order to process. Today I start a 5-month stint as a full-time writer. At last, with God's blessing, I get to immerse myself in black words on paper, forming scenes and personalities to my heart's content. I know that this time in my life will be one that I look back on with nostalgia. In the future days of children, jobs, traveling, and deeper marriage, full-time writing will be a thing of the past. I'm so very thankful for the time God is giving me now to follow the vision and passion He's poured into me from childhood. 

I want to share this with you. Come with me on this journey. Share with me, too, the emotion mixture that you find swirling inside your veins today.

We All Love Mondays

The first day of my last week of work left me dizzy with a splitting headache and a scheduled doctor's appointment. It left the other person with a crushed car.

Many of us were raised with our parents shouting an optimistic, "Make good decisions!" to us as we ran off to school or work or a get-together. A casually dressed twenty-something pedestrian did not heed his mother's age-old advice this morning as he ran into the street. No crosswalk. No "look left, then right, then left". And no apology after witnessing an accident caused by his own mistake.

I see it in slow-motion. I am coasting along at a safe 25mph, talking (responsibly) on the phone with my mom, when this man sets off my peripheral-vision-alarm. In the matter of a second, I register that, if I keep driving at my rate and he keeps jogging illegally across the street at his rate, we will collide.

I slam on my breaks.

He skids to a halt.

As I lift my hand to wave him on, his eyes look past my car and widen like a startled cartoon-character.

My thoughts of, Why isn't he crossing now that I stopped? are interrupted by a splitting screech of tires. Next thing I know, my cell-phone is flying out of my hand, my head indents the front of my chair, and I come to a harsh stop with my hair whipped across my face.

Collisions in real life don't sound like the car collisions in movies. Instead of high-pitched crunching noises it sounds more like a box of metal at war with a boulder--deep, like a bass at a rock concert mixed with a sledgehammer on your front door.

We pull over. I shout, shaken, to Mom that I got hit and I'll call her back. When I get out of the car, all I see is God's giant hand releasing my vehichle. He nudges me under the chin, and whispers "I'm with you."

My Jeep doesn't have a single dime-sized dent. The other SUV looks like shrink-wrapped metal, spewing automobile liquid like a hundred punctured hoses. A few phone calls, exchanged information, some words with the KCPD, and a tow-truck later, we go our separate ways. I drive to work an hour late--shaken and sore, but very aware of the impenetrable wall my God creates when He's protecting His own.