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... :)

The Idea of Change

While some shudder at the idea of Change, I have typically thought of myself as someone who embraces it - I accept newness as adventure and put myself in the position to overcome difficulty with the vision of growth. When it comes to moving across the country or exploring a foreign country - sure, sign me up. Living in a new space, working a new job, trying regional food, delving into a new church community - okay, I'll be fine.

But when it comes to relationships, I have a different reaction. Lately, I have noticed a slight ambivalence surfacing when I think about how friendships either mold and evolve, or dissolve and fade-out.

After all, I'm the girl who had the same best friend from Kindergarten to Middle School, then carried the same crew of best friends from high school into my mid-20's. The thought of moving on from friendships or letting them dissipate over time always brought such heavy sadness to my heart - how could you share so much growing-up with someone then only talk once a year? How could a person know my heart inside & out, then simply not know who I am anymore?

When I think about romantic relationship, I recognize the magic of the early stages - a fluttering heart with the first kiss, a stomach of butterflies with each text, and an absolute giddiness with any slight mention of the future. Only five months in, I \fear getting to a point of comfort where "I love you" becomes habit, hand-holding is the standard, and selfies together = so normal. I find myself already missing those early-early moments even though we're still in them. I search for a method to cling to each blissful memory because of fear that it might cease to exist. Planning a future and a life with someone brings nostalgia to the Beginning - the stages of sheer glee knowing there is a human in the universe who is so in love with you and so For You that he would truly do anything to be with you.

But thinking about this stage with the desire for it never to end is simply ignoring the beauty that comes with growing through every season of life with someone. While it's true that you can bring delight into the ordinary and make normal moments special, it's also true that romance wears out and you're left with life.

I want to look back and see our love right now for what it is - while it carries the feeling of being deep and perfect, I hope I look back and realize it is surface and imperfect. I don't want to feel what I feel now in five or ten years because I want to know that my love has transformed with time. All the sentimental emotions arise thinking about the beauty in the past five months, but I also desire knowing his dreams, motivations, thoughts, goals, character, quirks, and hopes to a far deeper extent than what is possible right now. While I pushback against Change, I know that the evidence of life together is the exact growth I fight against.

An age-old lesson of the Cross returns: often things in life have to die for something else to begin. Sometimes those friendships have to be left behind or that romance has to die out for a more beautiful relationship to emerge. Grieving What Has Been and moving on towards What Is is a discipline I will never perfect, but I will try to understand. God gave us the Cross as the greatest example of death and life, and He allowed me to walk the Camino to embody this metaphor. He has given me an example of His Love in Benjamin, a shadow of His sacrifice I get to experience on earth... and He gave me a school year with a start and an end so that I can pause and mark the year. He gave me 29 going on 30 and I don't want to be the same person in August as I am today. It's okay. It's okay for that one thing to die, it's okay to move on, and it's okay to Change. Change = Growth; and Growth = Life. I want to move and grow through all the seasons, embracing them as another way to know God and be more refined into the woman He created me to be. And I am so beyond lucky to get to do that alongside forever friends - especially Benjamin, my life's greatest gift.

The Pace of Life

We have finally arrived to the point in the year that most teachers have looked ahead to since the previous August... the paintings start to detach from the walls, packets and projects saved for a rainy day go the trash, and day-by-day the classroom begins to sense the impending emptiness. The children are anxious for summer alongside the teachers - that last day of school is looming on the calendar like a far-off, unattainable land where freedom resides with Rest and Sleep.

With early bedtimes and heavy morning eyelids and red-eye weekend flights... I long for a day I can simply sleep past 6am. I look ahead to summer as this time to be filled up - rejuvenated and at peace. When I consider this desperation for summer, I wonder what it is I more deeply long for... a rhythm of life that is sustainable? A time when I no longer answer to 20 children at every moment? I don't want my life to be a series of countdowns... to holidays or breaks or marriage or summer... Is it possible to enter into each day with the fullness and freedom that is so easily found in those blissful summer months? Because this habit of longing will never be completely fulfilled... it will just be replaced with something else.

I look to God as my Sustainer, remembering that He is the One who brings true Rest. True rest is not found in sleeping-in or blank calendar days or collapsing on the couch after school... Rest is only found when we come to Him as the fountain of life... and that can be found everyday, no matter the season or location or job or chaos of the moment.

I desire to make it more of a discipline to Be Still and Know... not just in summer, but each day I can choose to live in Him.

The Choices We Make

A common theme here is that time is running out; or time is speeding by; or time is simply too scarce. I have been challenged lately to consider what it means to make time for something vs. the excuse of "not having" time.

Spontaneous trip to Mexico for tacos on Friday :)

While the amount of hours in a day remain consistent, we choose how we prioritize each minute. Sometimes this means saying yes to the friend you haven't seen in a few weeks or agreeing to a group hangout, even when you feel tired or lack energy. It always seems worth it at the end of the day to say Yes to people you love.

Mexico... My dreamland

But there are other times that I know my own level of sanity and know that I need to say No... no matter how badly I want to say yes. I need to simply Be - with my thoughts and my wonderings - with the questions and goals and life plans - with a shower and early bedtime. The dance between Yes and No is how we demonstrate our values; it's how we show that what we say lines up with what we do - and it's in those decisions that our life plays out.

This place.... All the heart eyes.

One of the reasons I moved to San Diego is to be near the water... But I realized in those first few months of living here that life is still life - there were weeks when I didn't even see the ocean at all (exception: my drive to work...) I claimed I didn't have time or that life was too busy... But when it came down to it, my love for nature was simply not a priority. My new year's resolution was to make more time for beauty - and since the beginning of 2016 (& meeting Benjamin ;)) I can honestly say that I have enjoyed more sunsets and beach days and sandy strolls than ever before.

1000 Steps Beach

We truly do make time for the things that are important to us... and our choices each day reflect who we are; our attitude and values and level of importance. It seems that there is never the right time for the things we want to do - a thesis or relationship or traveling (or sleep...?!) - which is why we simply have to let life happen sometimes - prioritizing the things we love and making time for the things we don't always love.

Because we DO have the time, the question lies in how we use it.

Waiting for Beauty

After an eye-opening trip to Costco with Benjamin the other day, we loaded groceries and parted ways to meet at his home. Although I left a few minutes after him, I proudly waved my Finish Line banner as he pulled into the drive 5 minutes after me. Between stairs and unloading boxes, we chatted  regarding our drive home route. While I wove between lines of cars on the freeway, he took the classic Highway 101 - the epitome of California in every way, with the sun setting as he drove directly next to the ocean. Although I arrived faster, I had no report of ocean views or those soft sunset colors.

There's nothing like a drive home from Costco to highlight my efficiency-minded, on-the-go attitude towards life these days that trades beauty for rapid pace; that looks ahead at the horizon while passing by the ocean. I am so focused on achieving the victory and arriving at the destination that I miss the moments to invite beauty into my everyday life. I save the recognition of the Wonderful and the delight in the Lovely for vacations, the moments that give me no other choice but to marvel and be in God's creation. The addictive nature of travel is that we reserve the Away for recognition of beauty Here.

I am challenged to slow down my pace, breathe a little deeper, and perhaps choose the slower way home for glimpses of the waves. The option to pause at the ocean is one I want to receive as a gift this year, so that when I look back, I don't see the grind of the early morning commute or those sleepy struggling eyes, rather I remember sitting in the beauty offered to me each day and how those small, yet significant moments gave me a chance to return to what matters and be filled by God in order to direct my gaze towards Him.

One Thing I Am Learning

I've always had an idea of love - from the general musings of friends - that it's a daily choice; one to work for and try hard at, one that takes time and practice and discipline and intention. While there's no doubt all these angles are true- they have also slanted my idea of love. I have wondered and imagined what love might feel like - cringing at the idea of being forced to make such a difficult decision in life... hoping that maybe I would have the wisdom to make the right choice at the right time.

But when it comes to real love, the kind that comes when you see God alive in another human, the kind that gives without running out and challenges you to be better, I realize that "the choice" is not really a choice at all. It is more of a fact, a realization, a knowing. One that seems so obvious that to stand away from it would be denying truth itself.

In this way, I am now just beginning to peer over the surface of how deep God's love is for me... how unconditional and real and clear it is.

This is the evidence I know it's real... if it draws me deeper into Him, then that's the whole point.

How gracious and good of Him to give me this gift.