I changed addresses, communities, acquaintances and surroundings. I was able to get the teaching job I wanted, but though I was many miles from home, I hoped that things wouldn't have changed since my absence. Of course, I knew things would change somewhat. But I hoped the city that I called home for seventeen years of my life would remain so. The friends that I depended upon for encouragement and laughs would be consistent. That was not the case.
I found that things changed. A lot. And the place that I called home was no longer home. I guess that is how life plays out sometimes. Things are not 100% throughout time. We grow up, move, get married, have kids, dive into professions, and make new lives with new people. I am not blaming anyone. It's just that the interactions with old friends over the Christmas break of 2014 became a blunt realization that my life was no longer the same, and probably won't ever be. The fantasy that a moment can last forever is just that. For the clock continues to count the seconds that pass away, and we grow up. We grow out. The people and places we encounter pass just as quickly as they come sometimes. I have memories of the wonderful trips and conversations I had with some of my Missoula friends. And I look back wondering how almost a decade has passed since my first mission trip. How fifteen years ago, I was still in the elementary school, with big plans and big dreams...couldn't wait for me to grow up so I could make those dreams happen. I remember that twenty years ago, I was just a little girl with no cares in the world.
How did everything change in such a flash? Why did it have to change? Couldn't my plans have stayed the way I hoped they would be? Or could at least the relationships I had growing up have strengthened rather than phase out? Why couldn't have home stayed as home?
I know that the Bible says not to complain, but what happened over the holiday break was an emotional tearing. And rather than just confine my thoughts into an excruciating, lonely melancholy, I decided to let God know exactly how I felt about this new chapter of my life. Or rather, another layer to this new chapter of my life. I was finally just fine with no longer being in Missoula. What I was not okay with was being alone. And that was how I felt. So, I wrote a poem. Not much of an uplifting one at that. It does mourn the passing of experiences into memories, wishing that those moments could stay present. It wasn't enough that my plans had already been turned upside down. But the things I had were no longer there. Thus:
Time likes to mock
Like hyenas hackle
at lion cubs.
Like the jeers for
a failed jokester
In the presence of
an audience.
It taunts the
heart with hope and desire,
Forcing humanity
to wait
In pain and in
length.
The Clock becomes
sluggish in the wanting,
Yet it becomes
fleeting in the moments needed.
Dreary drudges and
dreams fast forward
To become past
memories
In an instant…
I remember when I
was a child.
Joy expound; doubt
did not exist.
Hope deepened;
fear was unheard.
Today was only
ever the day that existed.
Laughter filled
the air as the new-born dew tickled my toes.
And the sun warmed
my skin with my breathing heart
In the morning; Fall-covered
leaves painted the landscape
In the afternoon,
and in the evening, delight -
Flakes of snow rested
on my freckles
In a seamless
memory. A year was a day.
Months became mere
seconds.
I was a
child…once…
Before the lines
of Age
Marred my saccharine
innocence through
The continuation
of introductions to Tomorrow.
Home had a new zip code. Or at the moment, I realized that what I could call "Home" didn't have one. I was in a stuck in-between place, where my present was still rough, and then I found out what I hoped to be a safe-haven isn't any longer the net it used to be for me. It brings in new questions for me, particularly - am I going to trust Jesus with everything? It's a lot easier to answer when there is a net. When there is a trail to follow back to. What I had written wasn't blasphemous, I don't believe. But, I was suddenly made aware that life itself is not constant. At this time in my life, I have trails to visit the child-comforts I once had, but they are no longer the same trails back to home.
In the midst of this change, I have realized that the only thing that is constant is God and His faithfulness. No matter where I am, who I know, how the days of my life are being written...I know I need to hold onto Him. It's been a hard gulp to swallow. It would be if you never had reason to fully trust God, because there were others holding you up. And now, I am in a place (literally - I live in the boondocks, right next to the mountains where there is no gas station or store for another 30 miles) where the only thing I can do is to trust Jesus. I have to, and will, make my home in Him.
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