Last year my sister met and began to love Levi, and today I finally board a plane to see them. We've been waiting for this. And guess what? Sometimes life really is like a movie. Call me sentimental, but I say that 'slow motion happy' is very real. Tonight the comfort of my homey childhood will fill me up, just standing there with Levi and Jenna for two seconds at the airport. And tomorrow morning I'll be having coffee with my sister in Texas. This is quietly thrilling.
Sometimes life is big in the minutes you wait through too. Each minute this week is 'stolid, all things a century' to me because I'm waiting for news of a friend and her baby.
One of my very dearest friends, an instant kindred spirit, is in labor. Yesterday I got news from them, and in the most normal parts of my life, the minutes inched by.
Do you know why movie producers include those things? Because that's what real life feels like.
All minutes yesterday were full of empathy and hope and pain and prayers and some parts of my own cracked heart. I kept this quiet while I taught, but another teacher said it so well. 'You must have a lot of background noise today.' Apt thought.
This friend lately has grieved, and I have grieved with her too. The pain of losing her dad a few weeks ago to cancer is all fresh and intermingled with new life and babies. The feeling of loss for them is sometimes so fierce and sudden that I have to remind myself to breathe. He was an incredible man. We miss him.
The only comfort of all of that is that despite my gray questions, I first feel this draw to the Spirit of God. He knows us. He has us taken care of. He understands.
One thing I undeniably learned in my 20s is that sometimes pain and your happiest things are side by side, and the trick of it all is to face it bravely. If you aren't brave about your joy and your pain, you miss out. I've lived brave and afraid, and while bravery exacts things from you, I prefer it. All big things are also intermingled with the small.
So yesterday I saw again that I can crack apart inside with hope and waiting and grief, and on the outside I am still the teacher who can teach.
The happy part of that is that as a teacher there is a big story in front of me too, and sometimes this is a blessed distraction. I am not a fan of burying yourself in your work, but sometimes while even your waiting feels focused, this is very good. Teaching in the midst of long minutes of grief or waiting has been comfort. Middle schoolers are a terribly wonderful 'fill up your whole world' distraction. They have different big things going on. And they're funny too.
I am grateful.
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