For Adam

Z and I just enjoyed this a couple of times and then walked around the house singing our hearts out. And because Adam can't see it otherwise right now, here it is for you.

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Sent Out

I ended a full day by driving home at two in the morning, windows down so I could enjoy the bit of winter the Valley allows. Sixty-five degree wind never felt better and just as I got on the highway Love and Memories came on the radio and for a few minutes I felt a little amazing, never mind my hair flying in seventy mile an hour directions or the short distance home.

A day like this, for all its simplicity, doesn't normally have this kind of ending. I visited my father and his wife, played with my nephew Rocco - he who enjoys chewing on fistfuls of hair if it's not stinging to the touch - ate Chinese for dinner and babysat for two nieces, Amanda who cannot experience life without high pitched wails of discontent and Emily, who at only two months doesn't know the difference anyway.

I should have come home and found comfort in bed, fallen deeply asleep instantly once my head hit the pillow. My drive home didn't allow it. I came in suddenly ravished, I laughed at the delicious morbidity of finding a carton of eggs on top of a box of cold fried chicken in the fridge and then helped myself to a snack. Then I came here to let you know of such an extraordinary end to such an ordinary day.

If I ever figure out what this was all about, I'll let you know.

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Nurse Breeders

On the morning of the 14th, a month and a day following my graduation, I woke from a dream where I had been sitting between two men, a father and son who were gently imploring me to stop acting the way I was. Even as I woke, I knew what it meant, but it's taken some days to clunk into place. Because that month was full of selfish decisions, hiding under blankets, wishing things were different and not accepting the changes that had taken place. In attempting to control everything, I lost myself for a little while. I'm somewhat back in check now (it helped that God timed this well, as Jon Randles of Paradigm was in the area this weekend and available to remind me of what I'm capable of being when looking to God for direction), but it's a continuing struggle, recognizing God fully and continuously as Lord, not just a glimpse when breaking out of the waters of disillusionment before willingly sinking back down. Jon reminded me tonight that I have to give my mind over, the mind that I guard so carefully, that I take such pride in, the mind that tries to take over when things are going well and I humor myself in thinking that it's that way due to my own superiority.

Heavy thoughts when I just came in here to talk about my cute nieces and nephews and compare Home to Home (the Starbucks here has less variety, but there are far more sushi bars available - you'll have to tell me who wins this round). I suppose it needed to be written so I can see it myself instead of locking it away in a portion of my brain, only so I can dredge it up later and hate myself a little for getting lost again.

Feel free to laugh at me, though, if I get the job I'll be applying for tomorrow at Valley Baptist Medical Center. That place has been God-mentioned over the last few months and I tried to ignore it until tonight. Jon told his cousin that he should talk to me and, given it was following church, I figured it was about joining the FBC in Harlingen, but it turns out that, guess what, the cousin is Dr. White out of VBMC. After I very nearly head-desked the table in front of two grown men, I sighed, explained, Jon pointed out the obvious and I said, yes, I will, okay, I'm applying. So if I get in, laugh, because it proves once again that God is smarter than me and I should really stop trying to one-up the guy.

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AMC

So here we go: after three weeks of tucking into a ball, feeling sorry for myself and making countless comparisons between my old and... older home, I got my act together and started church shopping. Now when I say this aloud I get curious looks and I suspect you're giving one to the screen right now, but surely someone out there must know what I mean. Basically, I've started looking around, observing what congregations are in the area, the type of teaching provided, the manner of Bible studies, the friendliness of the people involved, etc.

I had it easy last time, with Lynn conducting her appraisal at the same time; we ended up at FBC together (which was odd at first since I'd attended a nondenominational church while in Longview) and enjoyed it enough to stay and stick it out (then again, there was one summer where I nearly abandoned them, mainly out of selfishness and a massive, ill-thought superiority complex - and nearly left the next summer because I missed home so much and then a year and a half later I finally just left for home and here I am at last and miss them all dearly). It does not even scratch the surface to say that I watched FBC grow a great deal, not just in numbers, but in their love for the Word, people and the community, particularly the college crowd. Because of that... I'm a little spoiled. Sue me. I'm afraid it'll take a while to find a new place in the RGV, especially since there are some larger churches in nearby cities that I want to check out. I imagine all of this will take a few months, to say the least, but I'm approaching it with as an adult a purpose as I can dredge up from within myself. Aaaand now my pessimistic side is branding this whole thing with a big fat FAIL.

Sigh. At least I was able to politely decline an invitation to a Jehovah's Witness worship service. That's something, right?

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Second Play

Last night I sat around with my brothers and sisters, drinking margaritas, playing poker, passing around the next generation and enduring all-too-familiar teasing. It's a way they show their love, the teasing, the ribbing, the ohgoodnessgraciousmakeitstop joking. It makes me fear introducing someone new to them because they'd have to be made of hardy stuff to get through the night.

My siblings are making me laugh a great deal, though, the way they seem so much more overprotective of me these days. I used to live nearly five hundred miles away and hardly thought about it. That may be an incorrect assumption, but it's not like my brothers called often and my sister would say she missed me, but she had her own life going on. But now that I'm here, Eli has taken to beating me over the head that he's glad for my presence (it's a brutal sort of love that I don't quite understand), while both Becky and Ace make sure I call when I get home after leaving their homes, despite the distance between mine and theirs has dwindled down to just a couple miles.

Perhaps they know something I don't, but I think I'm better off just rolling with it.

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Fawkes

Seeing as this is the first post in my new home on the web, I imagine it should be pretty long and drawn out, carefully describing my new home life and such and such, whatever. It's late, I'm not up to it and if I don't open this blog now, it probably won't happen for a while.

So this is what I'll tell you: a week back in the Valley and I've babysat three times for my older brother, once for my younger brother and gone to sit with my grandmother in the hospital twice (she had knee surgery and is doing well, thanks for asking). Surely, that nursing degree was a wise move.

I miss the 'ville and my car broke down two hours from arriving home. It then required two separate visits to the mechanic, further increasing the debt in which I lie toward my mother's bank account. It sucks and it's making me cranky. Sorry.

I have found hilarity in my niece, Zara, however. Only 21 months and she's quite the hellion. In fact, she took a dislike to me after a several month absence, though she liked Eileen very much upon first sight. Zara displayed her feelings by continually saying "NO!", wagging her finger at me and, on occasion, smacking me with tiny palms. For the first several days, she refused me hugs, kisses and, yes, even Cheetos. Life is cruel. Though, she has made a habit of being contrary her entire life when it comes to me: she chose to be born the day after I left from a week long visit and then decided to do the same thing when it came to her first independent steps. Refusing to sit next to me on the couch? Same difference. But I'm wearing her down, slowly but surely. It required me to share an orange, but the sacrifice was quite worth it.

It makes me think about when I was driving home, pre-breakdown, and I thought that when it comes down to it, I moved back to the Valley to love my family. And then my car imploded, my brother drove two hours in the middle of the night, tethered my little Kia to the back of his truck in freezing drizzle and dragged us home in increasingly worsening weather at four in the morning (my battery dying and panic rising along the way) when he had to be at work at eight and it finally got through that I moved back to the Valley so they could love me, too.

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