In Between

July is easily one of my most favorite months. It includes my favorite holiday, our anniversary, it's usually deliciously HOT and sticky,  and without argument the middle of summer. You don't have to think about fall or transitions. That's what August is for. July is all-in.

As I reflected on the wild waves the first half of 2015 offered, I found this July to be about the in between. An eye of the hurricane? Perhaps. Bobbing in the rolling ocean before the next swell threatens to sink? Maybe that too.

We spent the beginning of July soaking in family and celebrations. My heart swelled and rested there.  Vacation is a magical space that we do not take advantage of enough.

However, the journey home mirrored how I feel life looks like right now. Too close for comfort timing, racing through airports bags flopping awkwardly behind, begging and pleading, losing hope and watching miracles unfold and literally being the last two to make it on after doors already closed. And always surrounded in the kindness of others.

We returned and the next morning signed papers. Our home no longer officially ours. The relief and sorrow and excitement and grief all came barreling in.

We wrapped up and packed the rest of our fingerprints from that space. It was checking off to-do lists. And the incredible help from Kurt and Jack got us through because moving day was a hot mess. Literally, a hot paving project outside the door mess. Moving, I don't think, is enjoyable for anyone but I seem to have a special VIP backstage pass into Are You Kidding Me? kind of moves. But we all survived. Even Nox who took it upon herself to christen the new place with lots of vomit.

And when I was completely unraveling and pleading with Nick and the dining room table that it MUST fit in the spare bedroom {don't ask} I realized how lucky I am to have him beside me on this trek into the unknown. He maneuvered the heavy table past reason and then talked me off the ledge and ultimately solved the feng shui problem that I was about to lose my mind about. Bless him. {He also cleaned up lots and lots of cat vomit while I stood there and cried}

In all the craziness I ended up back at the house by myself to collect the cats and perishables from the fridge. Closing the door behind me without a key gripped my body so tightly in grief that I almost couldn't do it. It was all wrong - I envisioned more time, more something so saying good-bye wouldn't feel so...hard. But the door closed and I didn't have any other choice but to move forward.

Good-bye 5417. 

July so clearly introduced me to holding the tension. I was overwhelmed with peace and joy, fear and heart-wrenching unrest -- all at the same time. I can't explain it, but one of the most important lessons I began to learn is to let them come. All of them. Don't try to explain how I feel joy and unrest so distinctly at the same time. Just let them in and move through. This in between-ness is exhausting.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day." ~Rainer Rilke

Waiting. Waiting for what? When will we know? Good luck to anything that crosses my path because I grasp it wild-eyed and hold it up close: "Are YOU it? Are you what's next?!"

"There's only one thing worse than a no - it's an unknown. It's this hanging in the balance that can make you lost your equilibrium...waiting can feel like an insane asylum of it's own...In the dark, in the middle of the night, it gets very clear: he who is hurried by worry, delays the comfort of God. You can want someone to reach over and touch your unspoken broken, your thin bruised places and smooth out the pain you can't hardly speak of: Pain begs us to believe that only action can end our ache - which actually only God can...And the making on one's whole life takes time. Goals take longer than you think; the ways of God take longer than you want. It takes time, a lifetime, to turn the ache of our longings toward Him." --Ann Voskamp

This season is no less painful and no less blessed. It's harder than not, but the bright spots shine that much more when in the middle. And the important thing - there's movement. Slow and wayward? Perhaps. But still moving.

"I don't know where you are these days, what's broken down and what's beautiful in your life this season. I don't know if this is a season of sweetness or one of sadness. But I'm learning that neither last forever. There will, I'm sure, be something that invades this current loveliness. That's how life is. It won't be sweet forever. But it won't be bitter forever either. If everywhere you look these days, it's wintery, desolate, lonely, practice believing in springtime. It always, always comes even though on days like today it's nearly impossible to imagine, ground frozen, trees bare and spiky. New life will spring from this same ground. This season will end, and something entirely new will follow it." --Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet 

"Babe, there's something tragic about you

Something so magic about you

Don't you agree?

Babe, there's something lonesome about you

Something so wholesome about you..."

~Hozier, From Eden