Summertime!

Any summer I've ever known has been filled with beaching and biking and grilling and roommating... the feeling of relief when shorts are pulled out of storage, the smell of freshly cut grass envelops the air, the restaurant patios and rooftops are a daily routine, and sounds of crickets bring comfort to sleep each night. Summer in Chicago is marked with a feeling of anticipation and liberation when the long-awaited sun appears and you suddenly remember why you live there.

But this summer is different... My first summer away from what I've known for summer's past. While the nature of summer freedom and sleeping-in remain the same (and the beach of course! ;))... in other ways I have to remind myself that it's the summer season... that it's June... and that the Fourth of July is around the corner. Here, summer doesn't present itself with the same kind of drastic change in lifestyle- gatherings with friends take place in the same way, the only difference being that I can stay past 9pm ;)

There's a certain ease to life here - sunny days are not pressured or forcing people out - summer feels relaxed and peaceful and slow. My days melt into each other, each one with more memories and jokes and time spent with Benjamin. And perhaps that's what makes this season feel the most unlike others... life with him is a daily eagerness towards 5pm when he gets off work, an expectation of time together each night - even when it's simply a bike ride and making dinner and Chef's Table, it feels like the best night ever. It seems I can never spend enough time with him -- knowing his heart, laughing about the little things, and dreaming about life to come. I am still in awe that he is in my life, and I would take 10,000 more summers that carry the same feeling of this one. I am the luckiest girl alive to live this summer season with him.

For our five month anniversary we headed into wine country in Mexico - the dreamy Guadalupe Valley... a place I've always wanted to go! Ben surprised me (until I guessed it...) and we spent the day wine tasting, taking in the views, and remembering our top 5 memories together. The trip carried a new kind of exhilaration with how drivable and accessible Mexico is after just receiving my Sentri/Global Entry card... until we got detained at the border for over an hour because who knew you had to actually activate those things before you can use them?! Learned that lesson the hard way. But Benjamin is my favorite adventure buddy and I will gladly be detained with him at the Mexican border any day! ;) Here's to many many more!

This Year

I used to think vulnerability meant openly sharing the depths of your heart with all people... to be vulnerable was to keep those deep & secret places out of hiding and in the light. But this year - from moving across the country to jumping back into the classroom to living in a studio to dating to falling in love - has been a life lesson of vulnerability that I have never experienced before. 

It's not simply sharing emotions or showing people your transparent self; vulnerability is in fact a choice you make to Risk. For me, vulnerability has meant taking the first step to act on a dream, make a decision, and seek a change. Championing this subject like no other, Brene Brown in Daring Greatly writes that vulnerability is "Wholeheartedness, a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness" (page 9 - highly recommend this book!) I love Donald Miller's imagery of vulnerability as standing on the edge of a dock jumping into the water - scary, fun, everything all at once. (He also says that vulnerability is loving another like this: "a phone call in the morning to pray about our day, a text-message to say I’m thinking of her, a handwritten note, a postcard when I’m out of town on business, remembering what drink she likes when we’re at a bar, asking follow-up questions about her friends, and not hiding behind humor when it’s time for a serious conversation.” -- which somehow manages to pull my heart every time I read it...)

Realizing my life needed a change while in Chicago was a scary admission to make - it meant that something wasn't completely right; for some reason my heart ached for beyond what was in front of me. While I entertained the idea of moving for a year, it was safer and much more comfortable to stay where I was in my familiar apartment with my known friends and my easy job. I didn't live out true vulnerability until the dream of California was put into action - fixing the Resume, applying for jobs, hopping in the car, and waving goodbye. The risk was the steps that made the dream attainable. 

I often think the same about love. I used to date by thinking through the idea of liking another person; maybe even entertaining them in my life for a bit. I claimed I wanted love, but there was no evidence of follow-through that moved me toward the other person. I wasn't willing to risk the very vulnerable feelings of love, so it didn't happen (that, and the others weren't Benjamin...) Taking steps towards real love - the kind that is not just an idea or dream or thought - has been the greatest and most beautiful challenge of my life. Putting myself in the position to truly love Benjamin has been as Donald Miller described, that feeling of taking a deep breath and jumping in and paddling in the cold water. From the beginning, Ben allowed such a safe space of honesty to exist between us in a way that I knew he was completely For Me, so that my heart didn't wonder or doubt. I could take the vulnerable action of jumping off the cliff and saying Yes because I was doing that hand-in-hand with another person. Choosing vulnerability over and over and over again is something I run from, yet so deeply want to do - it is continuing to love without abandon and choose him instead of myself.

Brene Brown writes that "Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences"... and I know this is true. The idea of vulnerability sounds great, but am I willing to live it out when it's scary? When it means quitting a job or calling that friend or saying No to other plans? That is the truest test of living a "wholehearted life" - and one that I am committed to exploring in & through the decisions, dreams, thoughts, and journey.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation."

//C.S. Lewis "The Four Loves"

Daring Beyond

I am challenged to consider the choices I make that determine what kind of life I am going to live.

Too often I assume choices like job, housing, location, friends, etc have power over me to determine my destiny. I settle for less because I'm afraid to expect more... I convince myself that what I have is good enough and it could never get better - even when I'm unhappy... I cling to the comfortable because I fear the failure.

I will never forget my wise friend Sonja's words urging me to "dare to dream beyond the Kindergarten classroom...." Those words led me to graduate school - a scary, but right choice for me at the time. Her wisdom then carried me to California - a risk 100% worth taking. Where will that dare lead me next...? Can I dare to dream for more? Or is my challenge to be grateful with what I have? When is it right to leave, when is it right to stay? At what point do you simply put your head down and grind it out doing the work you might not want to do in order to live the life you someday hope to live...?

These are the questions that plague my heart and my mind... that keep me up at night and occupy my prayers by morning... I want to know I am giving my passions, gifts, and purpose to something worthwhile. I want to give back and make a difference that matters... not just coast along on the easy road. Only God can answer these questions as time passes... Only He can lead by paths of righteousness for His name sake.

I remember that He is more concerned with the state of my heart than with the decisions I make - He cares about who I am becoming as a woman of Him, not necessarily my career goals. It's true that He fulfills the desires of my heart down to the minute detail... but it is also true that giving my heart to Him day by day by day is the most worthy decision I can make. I pray I can remember and trust His truth and rest in His goodness.

Thoughts from the City

This skyline... Sigh.

There is a sense in Home that reminds... Who you are, where you've been, and how life brings unforeseen change. Riding bikes along the same lakefront path I rode from the Lily to the beach for 5 years - looking over the water to familiar buildings in the skyline that motivated me for all those runs - everything that was so deeply engrained in my everyday rhythm of life suddenly appears foreign and unknown. It seems that with Benjamin by my side, the old becomes new, and that constant longing for something More is complete. The Chicago I know holds the remembrances of youthful hopes & dreams, wonders about the future and glimpses into What Could Be. It carries a blindness to years to come and a playful energy with all things Adult. Exploring the city with Ben has changed my sense of this city I once knew.

This guy... I love him to the moon!

Adventures in Divvy bikes... Yikes.

In my thesis research, I'm exploring how our landscapes, simply the environment we live in, change us. It's a gradual effect that happens over time, so that we often don't notice until we Return to the place we started. Living in a place with sun and ocean compared to a place of fast city life brings a different perspective to the world. Adventuring around Chicago for a week after living in San Diego for 10 months allows me to see how this is true. New eyes upon a familiar place brings a sense of Freedom from what was... It also brings sadness and a grief for what can never fully be anymore; to repeat the past in the city - young & single - would be to recreate a chapter that has closed. It was simply so good it had to end in order to prepare the way for the next Good. Moving on can be scary at times, the familiar streets no longer familiar, and the road before me is one of constant change I can barely keep up with... But I know that it is Good. 

We happened upon a Cubs game for scalped $10 tickets!
Lemon Chills and Beer... mmmm...

River walks at golden hour

In a way, I think full clarity for most life situations happens when we remove ourselves from the environment in order to return with fresh eyes. Driving to California with the city in the rearview mirror was perhaps the scariest thing I have ever done. But with risk comes reward - and had I never gone, I never would've known the Great & Beautiful that awaited on the other side.

Gathering with this community of friends is the very very best

The Lily!!!!! I took Ben to my favorite of homes... :)