Camera Lens.

I look around and hear familiar words mixed with the laughter of voices full of hearty laughter, and collage of colors and customs and people who really... all look relatively the same. Everyone is peering at Gate #s, squinting at hamburger menus, and placing an all-out siege on the boarding call lines.

Airports really are interesting places; amazing places. I love how they are abuzz with words and sounds and figures and lights, all booming with motion at 5:30 in the morning. Or the slow lull at 3 in the afternoon, as only the long-distance flyers are mingling around, waiting for the other planes to land and their own red-eye flight to finally fill up the isles of crowded space.

I look around, and also look and see me -- all grown up. Like one of those girls caught on camera and zoomed at all angles of film, capturing the perspective of how it appears -- like a hip, urban female -- no longer held nor with-strained from elements of life that used to counter women -- but on her own, abroad, filling up her passport with printed pride completing steps the women of the nineteen twenties only dreamed of. The camera pans back and contorts the lens of clarity, finding now, instead, just simply... me... no moving, no roaming, just me... And I'm sitting here, lingering in this cocktail Bacardi bar with a slim glass of Pino Grigio and my leather-bound journal, used church bulletin, and finished chic novel, with mom's thick blue Bic pen squished in the side.

I look like you could capture me on film. And the pretense illustrates so...

But instead, what you find here, is me, feeling the lingering nostalgia of life. Looking ahead, feeling back, and wondering what is me, in between. I'm on the trip of a lifetime, a vacation most only dream about. I'm bags-packed, Canada found, bound for Dublin, Scotland, and Salamanca Spain. I'm crammed into my hunter-green Samsonite and my North Face pack; for three weeks.

And sitting here wondering...

About kids. About home. About Pottery Barn and cloth napkins and matching center pieces and husbands and car pool lanes and green grass and church membership. I'm wondering what it looks like. What it looks like with me in it.

I'm wondering about the life I dreamed about at seventeen... and twenty-twenty... and twenty seven... And wondering, if I even would, if I even could, fit in it.

I want it. Every decent boy I meet makes me, want it. Every darling child I hold makes me, want it. Every home decor catalog makes me, want it.

But what I choose to do with that, I want too. I want to choose my heartbeat, choose my passion, choose my love. I want to allow, still, good things, to be the object of my affection, of my love, my lust.

So today, I'm vowing to love. To lust after green rolling plains that sweep across the Scottish highlands like pesto on soft noodles. To grab a pint of whatever the put in front of me, and laugh, deeply, hardly, truly. Embrace it as it is. To drive on the left, with the left-side stick, and scream like I never have at the craziness and thrill of it. To sing late into the night under the stars, swinging in my brilliant and saucy orange dress, to the late-night sounds that spin collages in the air.

I want to grasp it. I want to hold on to hope. I want to see me as I am, in both parts, in both sides, and live fully in both. I want to see myself in the lens that I am, and in the lens I could be.

Things I Wish I'd Brought

Things I wish I'd brought:

1. A bigger suitcase

2. Things that smell good

-- these were first to get tossed out on the not-practical pile, but ended up to be what I wanted more than anything.... lotions, perfumes, body washes, pillow spray...

3. Dresses. Dresses. And More Dresses. Anything that makes me feel flowy and feminine and fun. Frills.

4. A better camera. With a good lens, zoom, battery, and GB chip with lots of space.

:)

Not everybody...

A quote from Cion's mom that I'm stealing for sanity:

"Not everybody's going to like you,

And that's okay."

What freedom that brings!

Love Too Much?

Is it possible to love too much? To love too deeply? To love too easily?

My dear friend Matt was just diagnosed with cancer. Testicular, spreading to the lymph nodes in his abdomen. I say "dear friend" because that's how deep he runs in my heart. But I say it with weird meaning, because anyone who knows how often I actually talk to him or how I felt when I thought he was going to ask me out, is wondering "what?" I haven't seen him in a few months, and when he wanted to ask me out last fall, I said he had to wait; I was too much of a mess. And then later I thought I was too strong for him anyway...

Now I look at him, sitting today across the table, with his head shaved and trying to smile in his gray T-shirt beyond the evidence of weary, and think, "You are so much stronger than I am."

If I had cancer, I'd give up and die. I wouldn't even want to fight. That's it. Hallelujah, just let it be done.

But his inner strength is more than I thought of him. And it's in his words, how he wants to be a light by how he holds himself during injections. How he knows his demeanor is being watched by other patients, and he wants to show Jesus. Who is this man? Who has the perspective and strength to fight like that?

Three days in. He's three days in of nine weeks of chemo.

And I see him, and I think of him, and I am full of thoughts, feelings, emotions. I couldn't wait to hug him, couldn't wait to tell him stories about Garrett, and see his face and try to read his eyes. I could wait to sit across the table again in his home that I'd grown so comfortable in last fall.

And now I just want to be there. I want to curl up to him and hold his hand and tell him everything is okay, and that I'd be there. I want to sit in the doctors office so he's not sitting alone, and give him my looks and strength as he bears their replies. I want to spend Friday nights watching movies while he's throwing up and I'm tucking him back under the covers.

Is it possible to love too much? To feel too much?

He's not my husband. He's not my "responsibility." He's not even in my closest circle of people, or I in his. But something in me can't let him go. Whether its because I know suffering and want to be there like the incredible friends I have are to me. Or if I think I'm some kind of silent strength to him that's really just me thinking I'm some kind of feminine hero. Or because really, I do so genuinely care that it hurts me to the core, and I just want to be near him right now; I just want to assure him that I'm there with him, through this.

It's crazy. It's all just crazy. But it still makes me wonder, is it possible to, simply, love too much? To feel too much ? To empathize too deeply?

Run.

I went for my first run today in two months. What a good feeling that is!

And swam afterward.

7 Little Things.

So I'm stealing. From a tacky blog thing, but I'm jealous of it -- a blogger award to connect the blogging world, which helps keep life simple and sweet in writing. It's to name 7 little things from your week or about you. So here, I'm trying to simplify:

1. I got this cute card today from Bekah. I actually met the mail lady standing outside the mail box, hoping I might have something that didn't come in a long, typed and printed bill-looking envelope, and ta-da! a card from her, with coffee cups and sweetly, just "Coffee for two? I miss you. Bekah." Little things make me smile.

2. I made rainbow chip cookies this week. Rainbow chip because they are a luxury here -- you can't buy them! Surely, as simple as getting them in the Pillsbury bag and adding butter and eggs, and Harris Teeter has every kind on the shelf... except Rainbow Chip. So I ran into a Meijer in Kentucky on my way home, just for that bag! :)

3. I never left my pj's yesterday until 2 pm, and only did so then because Sandy was coming for tea. I never do that. Wow, that felt spoiledly sweet, almost rebellious.

4. I made pumpkin bread this week. Which is also because I'm begging for fall. I want freshness. Which seems weird for fall, but I want, I need, change in season. Now. In the weather, and moreso, in life. And fall will bring at least a glimpse of one form. Spring and summer here are endless, literally, I think its been 90 since mid-March with humidity to boot. I want cozy. I want apple orchards. I want dainty, turning autumn leaves and cobblers and sweatshirts and... coolness enough to at least go out side for a walk.

5. I'm cranky. Hurting. Cranky. Enough said. No more downers for this week -- because it's really about all the week holds...

6. I get to go to a backyard Tiki Torch Party tonight, with bbq and homemade ice cream and cute people to mingle with.

7. I've been chasing down a boy at church. Third Sunday in a row I try to find the Sunday School Class he said he was in. No luck; maybe tomorrow...

Grumble.

Silver Lining. Concrete Hope. Holes. All these words want labels on this post. All these words beckon for title.

A couple months ago, Sandy poured words through my tears: "It's okay to not look for the silver lining on everything, Christina." I try so hard to look and peer at things, looking for the purpose, the good, the blessing. But sitting in her hot tub at nine that night, I was full of emotions, reeking havoc over my life and tears gobbling up the patterns on my cheeks and dropping like steel sinkers into the darkened deep.

I've been taught to chin up. To "rejoice in all things." To not let things get me down, but press on. Besides, what other choice do I have? You have move through the day. Or, as the country song says, "If you're going through hell, keep on going..."

But this all becomes a fight.

Last night, I was getting ready for bed and feeling the drudgery in me. A hole. That's what it is; Josh left a hole in me. Anger burned in me, at him, for making, allowing me to feel this way again and not protecting me from himself and caring deep enough for me to treat me with what goodness I deserve. Not coming over me like a canopy of carefulness during this season. Holes. Ugh. That's all I am. Just a whole bunch of holes. And I stepped into my pajamas as I gritted my teeth, listing them off. Holes by Josh. By mom. By dad. By moving. By this stupid nanny job. Holes by purposelessness, not teaching, and feeling lifeless inside as a result. Holes.

These holes translate and leave a feeling of emptiness, and of deep, deep hurt. "I'm hurting, Lord" has been my continual plea.

I let out a long montage of grumbles today; complaining, anger, and frustration filled the phone lines to Bekah. Truth is, I want flowers to fill my holes. I want hope in a form that is concrete. I want lining that blows with sunshine and rainbows overtaking clouds.

I want tactile good: a boyfriend turned husband. a house. a place of steady residence. a fulfilling and sustaining job. a routine. a baby.

I want silver lining; I want concrete hope. I have, grumbling.