It’s tough to let go, isn’t it? It’s been a year since Dawn died this week….it doesn’t seem possible that so much time has slipped by so quickly, or that the world has changed like it has. But it is what it is.
I am not sure what is plaguing me today, this insistent feeling of being one step out of the world that I live in, but there it is. My skin isn’t fitting comfortably on my bones, and nothing quite makes it from my brain to the paper without some form of goo slogging the whole mess. So what do you do with a day like today? I’m in the sunlight portion of the library at my beloved AU, home to my final weeks of master’s degree.
Someone come save me from myself.
Did you know that I am all of a few papers away from a Masters in Divinity? Yep, a real live girl M.Div, cross trained in psychology, theology and leadership. A very, very tough academic program anywhere…here at AU, more so. There are a couple females graduating this year. I am not sure that I’ve mastered anything, let alone Divinity…but I have a piece of paper that says I am allowed to be a pastor, a counselor and a candidate at the PhD program. I’ve actually seen it…Dean Sebastian allowed me to pet it a tiny bit the day he got them in to sign. I am going to have the first master’s degree in my entire family history. Wow. I made it through. It’s not some little masters, either, folks…this is a “terminal” degree. Normal masters are about 40 hours. Ours…91 on my transcript, including extra classes. Holy cow. Three years of near insanity comes down to this. I have no idea what to do next.
So today, I am kinda faunchy to use an Oklahoma word…I’ve lost the same battle not to ache from the center of my chest out, not to see ghosts, not to remember…but only for a few seconds. If I don’t land the one job that I want here in Indiana, I am seriously thinking about heading for NC or Oklahoma. It might be time for a new life, a whole Phoenix experience. Maybe someplace that I have never lived before…maybe back to Southern Cali. Who knows. I am growing weary….and that isn’t really like me. In some ways I feel as though we live our lives on the same Easter egg hunt, trying to find that one thing that completes us, makes the pain in the chest slow down if not stop….and it just doesn’t happen that way.
I know what to do – bring it. Push the pain, be the zone, know my own worth and value…know the God who loves me, you, all of us.
I know to work out, listen to the great tunes, plan to zip line or climb, clean the house, whatever….realize it is a single day.
This is not my permanent game state. Maybe I will go to North Carolina this weekend, sit on the pier at Lake Lure and just get myself together.
I will not ache forever. It’s just a single day….and all of it’s echoes of deep loss and longing will not beat me.