Bulldozed.

This week, I have gotten bulldozed, steam-rolled, and run over. By life. Last week was rejoicing, but by the nights after school it was back to the intensity of emotional upheaval with family, and lots of tears and heartache. Increased by broken teapots and treasures. And then added stress of the same headaches - every day for three months - with no hope or help. And students who are running me over and curriculum that I don't have time to plan. I worked all weekend, literally, and then again last night. Not even a relaxing meal with friends. And now, I still don't have a US History lesson plan for tomorrow. Tears billow again in my eyes, my head throbs, and emotional exhausting suffocates me.

I want my mom.

Beyond Rejoice.

As sometimes this blog gets most of the depth of me in raw & yearning, instead today I decided to share in exclamation, a writing of praise and worship from my journal this morning, to God, my God, my Father:

BEYOND REJOICE!

God, words aren't enough to start, to say. It's too controlled to put letters to. I am beyond rejoice.

Vibrant. Alive. Afresh. Anew. Full Living. Sparkling. Propelled. Joyful. Explosive. Perfectly Placed. Called. Prepared. Gifted.

YOU HAVE RESTORED ME!

My praising, worshipful, thankful heart cries in full joy and faithfulness. I now can see, so I am boldly called to acknowledge your hand, your guidance, your strong support, and your listening to my cries. You ARE the God of I AM. You ARE the God who hears.

And I, am a Rejoicing, Joyful, Thankful heart.

Amen.

"...the bones you have crushed rejoice!" Psalm 51:8

Like Riding A Bike.

Going back to school today, was like riding a bike. Something you are trained to do and engrained with so deeply, that the inside of you still remembers all of it at the core.

It was students coming into class, me chatting and telling stories with them, reminded them to be quiet, memorizing all 33 names of one class, fending off junior jocks, aligning debates, designing formative questions, and setting the stage.

There are a few things a teacher must do, especially in high school, and perhaps the most important is to establish the fine line between teacher and friend. This is establishing authority while establishing interest, gaining repot while holding reigns. Today, I think I tottered both sides well.

Surely, some are testing me, and all are gauging who I am and what I am like as a teacher, but all in all the day was so successful, it didn't feel like a first day at all. Just "normal." Like riding a bike.

Who Rejoice.

Romans 12:15 "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."

We have had a lot of mourning together; over miscarriages, deaths, movings, loss of jobs, changes, boyfriends, transitions... But these days, we also rejoice together.

Over:

A friend due with a baby this month.

Several friends starting new jobs this week and gaining employment.

Several Wedding Engagements.

Another Pregnancy.

Today, these days, I have learned the truth and blessing of this verse, to "rejoice with those who rejoice."

She Gave Me Freedom.

She gave me freedom. As odd as that sounds, by my mom dying, she gave me freedom to love it here and be deep in my life here. To gather this place as a sense of home; to not be torn between leaving GR and living here, or feeling guilty about it. As odd as it sounds, she gave me this freedom.

I Dance On Tables.

I dance on tables.

Yes, you read that correctly. I dance on tables. Seriously, last night all inhibitions were thrown to joy in the wind and in front of everyone, I climbed right up and "who-hoo" -- there I went!

Yes, Spain. Spain. Spain. Spain. Everything Spain.

I've never felt so full of awe and wonder and inspiration and joy and light and glowing beauty as this life in Spain. Literally, I sat the first night at Plaza Mayor near my hostel with Sangria and watched the dancers in the square, the lights glow around, and linen table clothes served with goblets, and moaned. Moaned, groaned, expressed everything in murmurs for I just couldn't take in the escstacy of the incredibleness.

And now I am surrounded by 44 people -- 44 incredible, talented, interesting, life-induced people. From doctors to sub-terrain scuba divers, Olympian competitors to journalist, regional Chess champions to US Navy officers. We are a group of extreme interests, from the guy in banking for 9 years while also playing in electric guitar in a punk band, to the doctor who researches other doctors who have been sued but also dances the Sevillanas. From beauty pageant winners to surfers, financial planners to recording artists, pregnant women to women with partners, air traffic controllers to botox advertizers, parachuters to nuclear physisists, HR managers to Tae Kwan Do experts, snowboarders to Cameroon tourist planners, massager therapist to Nissan manufactorers. The vast experiences, travel stories, and breadth of knowledge is incredible.

I've never met 44 people I have clicked so well with and laughed so hard with. We speak in English, but laugh with Spanish mix-ups like calling husbands "fat" or taking a "bath" in the swimming pool. We drink wine at lunch and dinner, beer or choice drinks at midnight, and sing anthemns with our arms linked and rocking. We danced the Cotton Eye Joe, all 44 in one space, listened to poetry, performed skits, and saw our own "boy band" formed -- of a teacher, lawyer, retired military officer, and stock marketer -- with movements and motions and absolutely stupidity, which made it all the funnier.

This group is lively, interesting, joyful, open, sharing, caring, and hilarious. They are a group who gives the air a spark of light and laughter...

and me, the craziness to dance on tables.

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.