I love the ocean. There is nothing like the smell, the taste, the breeze that can only come off of thousands of miles of open water. The sand has that feel of being touched by sea, whether it's white powder in Cancun or beige sand in Santa Cruz or gritty grey in White Rock. It all feels the same on my toes. But the one thing all ocean beaches have in common, storm or calm, are the waves.
Life generally comes in waves; ups and downs, risings and fallings, hard times and the most wonderful times come one following the other. Tides come high and low, but they never falter. Waves are constant.
My life is not waves. When I think waves, I think little shpsh's to great white breakers and everything in between. My ups and downs tend to follow more of a hurricane versus frozen-over/only-slight-undercurrents-beneath-the-solid-ice ends of the spectrum. I rarely see an in between.
I am in a hurricane. The old adage that says when it rains, it pours...truth. It never stops. One thing after another after another after another. It's like getting caught in a strong current or a sudden volley of giant waves with no room to breathe in between. Just when I think it's safe to inhale, another wave smothers me and only stinging water enters my lungs. I haven't been able to breathe in a long time.
Today was another tsunami. A BIG one. I mean, yes tsunamis tend to be viewed as pretty huge, but this one was a monster. It nearly swallowed me whole. I cried and cried and cried. I haven't cried like that in...I don't even know. It was pathetic. It was pathetic, but it was real.
Tomorrow will probably be just another aspect of the hurricane. Maybe things will be better, but only until I realize I've just been resting in the eye and need to buckle down for another long fight.
There's something about the ocean that takes me back. Back to walks on the beach in tender years with a woman whose age I will never know but whose love I will never forget. Back to my eighteenth birthday kissing a boy who I still loved but I knew deep down had long since stopped loving me. Back to swims and bikinis and sunburns and crabbing trips and boating trips and weeks at summer camp and long meaningful walks and first rebellions and confessions. Back to the first night I knew someone cared for me, truly cared, and staring out across the bay with him altered me in a mystical, soul-changing way that I can't shake.
I love the ocean. I love the feel and the smell and the taste and the refreshment and everything it does to me. But I'd take waves over tsunamis any day.
I started an incredibly depressing blog on Saturday night about the hopelessness of goodbyes that might mean forever, and the bittersweet release of relationships never fully formed, but I scrapped it after I never got to finish. So here is the paraphrase version: Emily left. How do I encompass her hugs, her laugh, and her everything else without losing my strongly grasped and finally found sanity? Impossible. Others left too, and a few are yet to leave. But tomorrow is still a new day, and tomorrow I will rise above today.
Today. Today is June 1st. This day always catches me by surprise, and never fails to send me into a panic. I have always measured years June to June, rather than January to December or any other way that might actually make sense. Not only did it used to represent the end of school and the beginning of a new summer, but June also includes the dreaded day: my birthday. Sixteen more days and I won't be this glorious in-between age any longer. Somehow, 21 makes adulthood more official. I will be legal to do anything and everything in any country in the world, and it's as if my perspective will need to change all over again. June scares me.
Last night was Six in the Mix, a get-together of all six youth churches with over 600 people and a mean barbeque. It meant a lot as far as the number of new Christians goes, and people who have never been out before, but for me it was a life-change moment. I have had very few of those that I can remember, and this one was especially good. There, in that darkened room in White Rock, I was able to finally give my heart up to God without resistance. And realizing that my heart is ultimately His and no one else's is helping me more than I thought possible in the quest to be "fine" again.
Today I sit here, almost a year after I "should" have been married, in another life, and I'm not any closer to choosing bridesmaid colours or selecting china patterns than I was this time last year, or the year before that or the year before that. I feel hopeless and desperate and lost. Not hopeless that I'll never find anyone, not desperate to be with someone, and not lost without someone else in my life to hold my hand; hopeless that he could ever have what I need or be able to put up with my crap, desperate to find someone before I'm shriveled and old and unable to have children, and lost as to where that empty space in my heart should be directed at this time. Yes, God may have taken my heart captive, but there's still that small part of me that I don't think can be filled except by a forever partner. Crazy? Quite possibly.
So, welcome to my thoughts. This is everything tossing and turning and brewing and burning within me right now, so I thought I'd share...and it was an excellent exercise in determining exactly how I do feel. Putting thoughts into words always helps. And in case you're still wondering where the potlucks come in, don't worry, they don't. That's the point.
