Calm before (and after) the storm.

What a beautiful first day of October! I think most days in autumn (true autumn, mind) can't help but be beautiful. I'm preparing for a trip, and there are myriad little reasons why this is stressful, but I keep taking deep breaths and (be honest) getting dopamine hits from my phone and doing one more thing, and right now I'm keeping it together. It should be a slice of heaven, this trip, which is to say delicious but incomplete. I have the sense that I am hunkering down so as not to be lost at sea, something immense and dazzling and staggering before me, of which I must limit my partaking to its edges. 

Hurricane Ian swept by, sparing the sites most personally significant to me. It continues its course, swelling and threatening again, elsewhere.  This is life, right now, to me. So many times I have begged God to spare me some personal drama or catastrophe, because "after all I have been through, I don't think I have it in me to deal with this right now." I argue with myself about whether this is really something I signed up for—for example, that roller coaster ride of raising a child to adulthood, which is multiplied by an average of 2.3 for the general population, but by 12 for me; or what is supposed to be normal for a 25-year-old marriage. Not too far down from the surface of that are other acknowledgements, such as that every life is filled with similar trials, and I am in no way exempt or deserving of special favor. That I want God's will, I think, notwithstanding my prayer, and praying that whatever comes my way he will strengthen me for it. That whatever I think God has spared me from, one day a reckoning is coming. It is coming for everyone. I remember frequently that I am definitely being carried, and give earnest, deep, and quiet thanks; and that I still have the responsibility to show up and do something with this life.

"It is good that you exist." Who will heed? There is always pressure now to be clever or catchy, to put the right sheen on the image you project. Everyone deserves the room to just be, and I think it is possible to claim this space successfully. But we are more than static entities taking up space; we are communitarian. One cannot force another to listen, or to love, despite the truth that we all need to be heard, to love and be loved. 

Drop me a line if you read this. This is not a polished piece for subscriber consumption; this is a bit of a ramble, the kind you might take if you were sitting across from a friend, just talking between heartbeats. I'm not linking to all my profiles, but I'm not hard to find, especially if you already are somehow connected to me. You can just say, "yeah, I saw it"; you can tell me you agree, or we can have a conversation, though I'll say I'm not great at the comments section. Let's just practice the little steps of being a family in this world, being human. Hello.