Three times in the past two months, I have felt shame.
It shouldn't count, I know it shouldn't. I should be able to shake it off, shake off my "image" and embrace the reality of who I am and what I have been.
And when you're in the midst of it, sometimes it's easier to embrace it because you are incapable of fabricating another reality for yourself.
When you're out of the middle, you deaden the memory and try to live as though it didn't happen, try to prevent those around you from knowing the full extent of your darkness.
The worst part is, unlike drugs and alcohol addiction or eating disorders or the like, depression doesn't look good on a Christian testimony resume.
Depression makes people nervous.
They don't know how to respond.
Partly because it's not something that ends; it's something that becomes managed.
The potential for it to rear back up induces anxiety.
When we speak, we are not seeking for your pity, we are not seeking for you to feel bad for us retrospectively or to "hurt" with us. Not usually. And if we do, it's not to make ourselves feel better but to help you get some perspective as a human being.
Don't look at me like I'm a limping puppy on the side of a highway.
We're speaking the reality of who we are.
Belfast.
You have been my friend and enemy alike.
Students who don't know me want to follow my example and follow me to the Emerald Isle.
And for the fourth time this semester, I have been asked for my advice and to speak on my experience.
The first time, I was in the class I'm auditing. The topic of the day was clinical depression, and the professor (who is a friend of mine) asked me to speak on the "Dark Night of the Soul" and my hole of depression. Of course I spoke, but I was shocked, as I was speaking, how clearly I began to re-feel, though I had shut those emotions down for so long. It was like muscle memory. I spent my night wrecked, absolutely wrecked, near to the point of vomiting with grief. Took me completely off-guard.
The second time, a student who had been there with me asked for my advice.
While there, I had been so cloistered and such a whipping girl, that they did not understand me nor what my experience was like as compared to theirs.
I do not speak to those students.
The person who was their RA is not me. It was this weird depressive alter-ego of me that only existed for a year. I can't face them. I am ashamed.
We met and talked for multiple hours, as I explained to her the different levels of thought she needs to consider before making the same move as I did.
She's seriously dating someone. How serious is she about that? Because you can't make half-baked life decisions that take you across the globe without taking them into consideration or hearing out their opinion. It gets messy.
She's prone to depression. That concerned me. Climate is a HUGE aspect of living there.
You can't just think about the academic program and the "adventure" and the story you'll be able to tell people. Life is not a fairy tale. You have to live it day by day, hour by hour, both with those you love and completely alone.
And, while I tried to remain objective in speaking about the different categories she needed to think about, my own life colored behind the facts, and she looked at me with this face...
The third put me on a panel of other graduated and post graduated English majors (JBU graduates) in front of the English faculty and current English students.
We spoke on the process of applying to postgraduate programs and what they are like to be in.
They were specifically interested in me, the international student.
The moderating professor, who knew me well as a fiery student with enormous plans and enormous love, pushed and pushed and pushed with very specific questions, first to the whole group then to me personally, until finally I had to admit my whys.
Why I had had to come back home for a bit in December/January.
Why I was no longer dating Noah.
Why I was back at JBU and not at Denver Seminary.
And the whys are just so messy, and even without admitting any of the specifics, admitting to people I had been viewed by as so strong and passionate, was shameful.
Then it ended.
Then the looks.
Then the gentle hand on my arm.
Then the car ride to Fayetteville to Bible study and the gush of tears and shadows I couldn't help.
Such pieces of me I want to forget.
Such pieces of me, if forgotten, will recur.
I needed to change, and I needed Jesus so badly to wreck into me.
But there are things too sacred even to remember, especially to admit to people who cannot possibly understand the heart of what you are trying to communicate.
God is good.
and maybe also, Think clearly about enormous life choices.
That is my message.
You hear:
Depression sucks. Feel so bad for me and my misery.
The fourth is yet to come. I've just received an email from a student, on referral from her history professor. What am I to say?
Her mere email is enough to bring tears to my eyes, in anticipation for the way it will drag my heart through its own muck.
My mother and boyfriend would chastise me with something to the tune of, "People don't need to know everything, Jamie."
Duh. I'm not some kind of self-named martyr with an agenda to broadcast her past wounds, but I am honest. And I answer questions with honesty.
Sometimes, though, that honesty makes me feel very small. Very very small.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Rain and Other Miracles
Each of my workmates wore their cute business casual footwear to day two of our preview day, except me. Though skies were rather clear, I wore rain boots. In my mind, it was just going to rain, despite what the forecast said.
And, upon leaving on my tour with my Texans, the storm began. Sometimes faith is rain boots. Even if that faith borders a bit on desperate hope.
Three of my seniors joined on this Preview Day, and all were undecided. In fact, one had already closed her application then reopened it in order to visit two months after. I call her my resurrection student. By the end of the visit weekend, I had three yesses, and they had one delighted counselor.
It is the very best when students visit. All students really but especially students that you're currently working with.
No matter how many texts, emails, or phone calls you make, the truth is, they are a file to you. A faceless, electronic file.
Then they visit.
And suddenly, all the random facts you know about them and their family have a face and a personality and a life to attach themselves to, and I am also no longer a voice and a texter and a mass emailer to them then either. Suddenly, I also become a person to them, and all the random facts and information I've told them for months have people and places and a me to attach themselves to.
It's a great feeling.
We really take these students home with us mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Say a student applies in early June. That means that by the time they end up coming to JBU the next August, we have worked with them for 13 months, contacting them in one way or another a minimum of once a month. That's a lot of time. Shoot, that's more often than I talk to some of my closest friends.
We hear about their family lives, know what's going on at school, are the confidant to a whole lot of things really. We learn to truly value our students not as numbers but as people and, more than that, people of vast potential in our university and to their lives beyond graduation.
Then March comes.
Financial aid award letters go out.
The conversations begin.
The nitty gritty comes out.
Decisions are made.
We know how hard making college decisions are, no matter how calm and collected we are on the phone.
When we hang up at the end of a long call, we are burdened with lives that we know so much about. Not a heavy burden (usually) but just the burden of caring so much about individuals we know so well. We want them to fit. We want them to make choices that will benefit them long term. We want them to love Jesus well and to learn how to deepen their understanding of what that looks like in every realm of their existence.
We pray for them.
We take their stories home in our hearts.
And when they close their files, especially when they close them for reasons we can't buy into, we are so sad.
Because we envisioned such a future for you here. And yeah, maybe that's a little selfish on our parts, it is your life after all, kid. But, in painting you a picture of what your life could be here for months and months on the phone and on visits, we saw it, too.
The death of an idea hurts. We know it hurts you, but know it hurts us, too. You are not a number. You are loved.
Each student is a miracle.
From how they learn about our university to how they are accepted (by committee or traditionally) to how they scrounge up tuition and housing deposit to interviews to paperwork to financial aid struggles to registering and move-in day, all while balancing home life and high school (during senior semesters). Every piece had to work exactly, like cogs in a clock, in order for their arrival to occur.
But then they're here. And wow. To see them on campus in the caf or playing frisbee on the quad or working in the library on a paper, thriving, learning, growing.
Miracles.
And, upon leaving on my tour with my Texans, the storm began. Sometimes faith is rain boots. Even if that faith borders a bit on desperate hope.
Three of my seniors joined on this Preview Day, and all were undecided. In fact, one had already closed her application then reopened it in order to visit two months after. I call her my resurrection student. By the end of the visit weekend, I had three yesses, and they had one delighted counselor.
It is the very best when students visit. All students really but especially students that you're currently working with.
No matter how many texts, emails, or phone calls you make, the truth is, they are a file to you. A faceless, electronic file.
Then they visit.
And suddenly, all the random facts you know about them and their family have a face and a personality and a life to attach themselves to, and I am also no longer a voice and a texter and a mass emailer to them then either. Suddenly, I also become a person to them, and all the random facts and information I've told them for months have people and places and a me to attach themselves to.
It's a great feeling.
We really take these students home with us mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Say a student applies in early June. That means that by the time they end up coming to JBU the next August, we have worked with them for 13 months, contacting them in one way or another a minimum of once a month. That's a lot of time. Shoot, that's more often than I talk to some of my closest friends.
We hear about their family lives, know what's going on at school, are the confidant to a whole lot of things really. We learn to truly value our students not as numbers but as people and, more than that, people of vast potential in our university and to their lives beyond graduation.
Then March comes.
Financial aid award letters go out.
The conversations begin.
The nitty gritty comes out.
Decisions are made.
We know how hard making college decisions are, no matter how calm and collected we are on the phone.
When we hang up at the end of a long call, we are burdened with lives that we know so much about. Not a heavy burden (usually) but just the burden of caring so much about individuals we know so well. We want them to fit. We want them to make choices that will benefit them long term. We want them to love Jesus well and to learn how to deepen their understanding of what that looks like in every realm of their existence.
We pray for them.
We take their stories home in our hearts.
And when they close their files, especially when they close them for reasons we can't buy into, we are so sad.
Because we envisioned such a future for you here. And yeah, maybe that's a little selfish on our parts, it is your life after all, kid. But, in painting you a picture of what your life could be here for months and months on the phone and on visits, we saw it, too.
The death of an idea hurts. We know it hurts you, but know it hurts us, too. You are not a number. You are loved.
Each student is a miracle.
From how they learn about our university to how they are accepted (by committee or traditionally) to how they scrounge up tuition and housing deposit to interviews to paperwork to financial aid struggles to registering and move-in day, all while balancing home life and high school (during senior semesters). Every piece had to work exactly, like cogs in a clock, in order for their arrival to occur.
But then they're here. And wow. To see them on campus in the caf or playing frisbee on the quad or working in the library on a paper, thriving, learning, growing.
Miracles.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Love Is or Princess Pollen
I woke from a sinus induced nap yesterday to find that I had been cuddling a jar of Vick's Vaporub.
That pretty well sums up my life right now.
"April is the cruelest month", and I find myself, once again, at her mercy, begging the skies for rain to wash away the oak pollen from my life.
What a tease, Arkansas is. A forecast of week-long rain replaced by sunshine. And yet, campus tours remain in my personal forecast.
Neither essential oils nor yoga nor Allegra D nor neti pots nor surgical masks can rescue me, and let me tell you what. These Kleenexes do not have lotion in them.
Before the month began, I gave my office and my housemates and my boyfriend warnings of what was to come, and I'm pretty sure they all thought I was being overzealous and paranoid. Until they saw what a mere walk in from my car to my office was capable of doing to my system.
Saturday was spent washing every piece of fabric on my bedding, vacuuming, and diffusing air purifying oils into the air to make my room my safe space. Not even clothes that have touched pollen are allowed in. After being chastised for driving with the windows down last week, the boyfriend, when offering to come over on Saturday, added that he promised to shower, change clothes, and drive with the windows up before he came. I didn't even have to ask.
Now it's Monday morning after a very long and sleepless night of sniffles left over from last night's parent dorm tour, and I am with my box of tissues sniffling my way through our morning meeting, thinking of the two tours to come today and of what I'm going to do.
The other admissions counselors are super kind and have offered to divvy my students, but I feel so ridiculous asking that of them that I can't bring myself to let them, despite the fact that I know my fate later today if I do the tour myself. Being pathetic is the least fun when you can't help it.
Being practical and practically compassionate is important me, even if I'm not great at being on the receiving end. But that's what love is sometimes.
Love is offering to take someone's tour when you see them under a pile of tissues. Love is driving with the windows up on a beautiful day. Love is going for your run and mowing back to back so you pollinate the house only once on your way back in, heading straight for the shower to get it off and protect your housemate when you do so. Love is texting your daughter allergy solutions, even if she is already doing all of them. Love is conscientious and kind and seeks to protect.
I guess that's my happy thought in this time of praying for rain.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Ugly Running
After about a week and a half after I downloaded the app onto my phone, I finally worked up the gumption to start C25K, a running app designed for lazy non-runners.
Also, it should be known that by "gumption" I mean "the leering guilt which came through devouring an entire box of macaroni and cheese by myself in one sitting...again".
I am not a runner.
Tried Track for a couple months in high school, made it two months under the regime of the interim coach and one day of the actual team.
My sophomore roommate Lauren got me to run for the same two months 5 years later. We ran every single morning. Mile and a half, ending with the 100 stairs on campus. It was miserable.
I've been four years clean from running, and thank goodness. That stuff is terrible, and I get just the worst shin splints.
And yet.
C25K.
Why?
You guessed it.
Office peer pressure.
We're going to a conference for nationwide admissions folk and guidance counselors at the end of next month and, for some ungodly reason, there is a "fun" 5K involved.
Basically, I was tricked into believing that we were all going to do it.
We're not.
But I have been promised a tank top.
So there I went to the health complex to get my run on on the track above the intramural gym. Because it's beautiful outside, nobody else besides me (the Allergic Wonder) was there.
5 minutes of warm up walk, followed by variations of a minute of running to a minute and a half of walking for 20 minutes, then 5 more minutes of walking.
It was all good and fun (ish) until I hear thumping behind me, see a runner (CAME OUT OF NOWHERE I TELL YOU), and scream. Like a little girl. That poor guy. He finished half a lap and escaped out a side door not to return.
The idea of running has always appealed to me. I have visions of running through fields, down country roads, or down really really long hallways in the basement of Pentecostal churches after hours, with my hair streaming out behind me and my 3 mile legs taking me so far so fast.
Reality? About 15-20 seconds of glory before I'm panting and feeling the start of shin splints.
I've got no endurance. Or patience to learn endurance.
Many things have come easily to me learning wise.
If someone makes me feel stupid or less than, I will kick their expectations right off the table. Nothing can sidetrack me from my goal.
It takes that challenge, though, to make me change, to grow, to...try.
I've tried tricking myself into different challenges, like a weird self-antagonism, but it just doesn't stick. I need that outside antagonist, just one person that I've got to prove wrong.
That's how I passed Honors Algebra 2 and AP European History, why I was able to hold to my determination against slipping back into anorexia, how I managed to complete my Master's degree.
I still know the triggers from each. And there are more.
There have been other things I have vaguely wanted to accomplish, but the hard-nosed drive just isn't there.
I suppose I've always seen it as one or the other: either I'm so determined I'm scary or so apathetic others are scared for me. The gentle incline of appropriated endurance is not something I've endured long enough to see the fruits of. I try once, get irritated with my failure, and quit.
That brings me back to running.
I'm going to finish the 8 weeks this dumb app makes me do, and I will do it on its terms, not mine.
Honestly, I don't really care if I become a passable runner or not. It's more that this is a practice in a form of discipline that no one else would even know about if I didn't tell them.
So many areas of my life I wish were different. At the same time, I only think that because I keep focusing on all the large battles lost when I'm not even paying attention to the small battles.
Of course I can't read a 300 page book when I can't read a 300 word article on TheDailyBeast.
Of course I can't turn my phone off for a full day when I can't turn it off for half an hour.
Of course I can't write a new book when I can't write a letter back to Leslie.
Small, consistent practices of discipline. The gentle incline of appropriated endurance.
That's what I'm lacking; that's what I want.
Also, it should be known that by "gumption" I mean "the leering guilt which came through devouring an entire box of macaroni and cheese by myself in one sitting...again".
I am not a runner.
Tried Track for a couple months in high school, made it two months under the regime of the interim coach and one day of the actual team.
My sophomore roommate Lauren got me to run for the same two months 5 years later. We ran every single morning. Mile and a half, ending with the 100 stairs on campus. It was miserable.
I've been four years clean from running, and thank goodness. That stuff is terrible, and I get just the worst shin splints.
And yet.
C25K.
Why?
You guessed it.
Office peer pressure.
We're going to a conference for nationwide admissions folk and guidance counselors at the end of next month and, for some ungodly reason, there is a "fun" 5K involved.
Basically, I was tricked into believing that we were all going to do it.
We're not.
But I have been promised a tank top.
So there I went to the health complex to get my run on on the track above the intramural gym. Because it's beautiful outside, nobody else besides me (the Allergic Wonder) was there.
5 minutes of warm up walk, followed by variations of a minute of running to a minute and a half of walking for 20 minutes, then 5 more minutes of walking.
It was all good and fun (ish) until I hear thumping behind me, see a runner (CAME OUT OF NOWHERE I TELL YOU), and scream. Like a little girl. That poor guy. He finished half a lap and escaped out a side door not to return.
The idea of running has always appealed to me. I have visions of running through fields, down country roads, or down really really long hallways in the basement of Pentecostal churches after hours, with my hair streaming out behind me and my 3 mile legs taking me so far so fast.
Reality? About 15-20 seconds of glory before I'm panting and feeling the start of shin splints.
I've got no endurance. Or patience to learn endurance.
Many things have come easily to me learning wise.
If someone makes me feel stupid or less than, I will kick their expectations right off the table. Nothing can sidetrack me from my goal.
It takes that challenge, though, to make me change, to grow, to...try.
I've tried tricking myself into different challenges, like a weird self-antagonism, but it just doesn't stick. I need that outside antagonist, just one person that I've got to prove wrong.
That's how I passed Honors Algebra 2 and AP European History, why I was able to hold to my determination against slipping back into anorexia, how I managed to complete my Master's degree.
I still know the triggers from each. And there are more.
There have been other things I have vaguely wanted to accomplish, but the hard-nosed drive just isn't there.
I suppose I've always seen it as one or the other: either I'm so determined I'm scary or so apathetic others are scared for me. The gentle incline of appropriated endurance is not something I've endured long enough to see the fruits of. I try once, get irritated with my failure, and quit.
That brings me back to running.
I'm going to finish the 8 weeks this dumb app makes me do, and I will do it on its terms, not mine.
Honestly, I don't really care if I become a passable runner or not. It's more that this is a practice in a form of discipline that no one else would even know about if I didn't tell them.
So many areas of my life I wish were different. At the same time, I only think that because I keep focusing on all the large battles lost when I'm not even paying attention to the small battles.
Of course I can't read a 300 page book when I can't read a 300 word article on TheDailyBeast.
Of course I can't turn my phone off for a full day when I can't turn it off for half an hour.
Of course I can't write a new book when I can't write a letter back to Leslie.
Small, consistent practices of discipline. The gentle incline of appropriated endurance.
That's what I'm lacking; that's what I want.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Toilet Snakes
My best friend moved to Australia this past weekend, the land Steve Irwin (RIP), giant spiders, and toilet snakes. It's also the land of sand, surf, and sexy accents, not that she'll be much seduced by them, as she moved there with her sweet husband.
It's a time of transition indeed for so many of my friends and loved ones.
For Kira, it's a time of, "Good Lord, finally!!!" Tyler's job has him on the go and away from her for months at a time. Moving to Australia will enable them to be like a real life married couple.
The next three years are going to bring her so many incredible, life-altering experiences, probably a horrible partial accent, and gobs on gobs of joy.
It'll also be difficult: "How do I make new friends?" "Where do I start looking for a job?"
It'll be wonderful, it'll be lonely, it'll be worth it.
I think that's one thing I'm really starting to learn. Wonderful, lonely, and worth it are kind of integral to "new". It's hard to forge new paths in your life. It's especially hard to do that while forcing yourself to choose against remembering, rehashing, recreating the old paths in your head, wishing old things were back, even if you didn't really like them or benefit from them.
They're familiar.
You know how they work.
If they didn't work, you know how to fix them now.
The choices in front of you are all unknown and scary and different.
Maybe better, maybe worse, but definitely full of maybes.
It's a time of transition indeed for so many of my friends and loved ones.
For Kira, it's a time of, "Good Lord, finally!!!" Tyler's job has him on the go and away from her for months at a time. Moving to Australia will enable them to be like a real life married couple.
The next three years are going to bring her so many incredible, life-altering experiences, probably a horrible partial accent, and gobs on gobs of joy.
It'll also be difficult: "How do I make new friends?" "Where do I start looking for a job?"
It'll be wonderful, it'll be lonely, it'll be worth it.
I think that's one thing I'm really starting to learn. Wonderful, lonely, and worth it are kind of integral to "new". It's hard to forge new paths in your life. It's especially hard to do that while forcing yourself to choose against remembering, rehashing, recreating the old paths in your head, wishing old things were back, even if you didn't really like them or benefit from them.
They're familiar.
You know how they work.
If they didn't work, you know how to fix them now.
The choices in front of you are all unknown and scary and different.
Maybe better, maybe worse, but definitely full of maybes.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
On Being Adult
Two weekends ago, I traveled down to Dallas for a college friend's wedding.
It was beautiful and strange to see her get married. She's had a pretty crazy journey through the past several years. These friends' weddings are a fun time to be able to get back together with people I was close to in college and have now been dispersed throughout the states.
These girls comprised a good portion of my freshmen year hallway, except a little sister, a husband (who was in the male half of our freshmen friend group) and a hometown best friend that have since been added as honorary members.
For the purpose of consolidation, two work friends and I decided to drive together and picked up a student who needed to attend a friend's wedding of her own.
She was very perky. One of the questions she posed to me on the way there was if I was sad that we didn't get spring break like the rest of the campus.
It resulted in this conversation:
"Well dude, when you become an adult--"
"--I AM an adult!!"
"No. You are not. Anyway. When you become an adu--"
"--which I am already"
"No. You are not. Anyway. When you--"
"I'm already an adult though."
"Do you work a 9-5? No? Do you pay your own bills? No? Have you ever lived on your own for any amount of time? No? Not an adult. Now then. Allow me to answer your question."
I went on to explain to her that when you become an adult, you learn to appreciate different things. Life is not a hallway of your best friends, playing music on the quad, learning, and every meal prepared for you by someone else.
I've learned to appreciate the good coupon (there was an online deal for half off pizza from Dominos last week that saved a ton when I went on a school visit), the way I can make a shower floor shine, when I get to go to the post office, a well written grocery list, a pencil skirt that is functional, fashionable, and comfortable, the fact that on spring break we get to wear jeans to work.
It's a different life, this chapter of realism. It takes a lot of energy to be a college student. Ha. This slower pace works well for me, but it is funny. From her perspective, it all sounds miserable what I said; but those are all things I genuinely appreciate about the day to day.
Different years will bring different stories, and this is mine right now: the daily grind of the newly adult.
It was beautiful and strange to see her get married. She's had a pretty crazy journey through the past several years. These friends' weddings are a fun time to be able to get back together with people I was close to in college and have now been dispersed throughout the states.
These girls comprised a good portion of my freshmen year hallway, except a little sister, a husband (who was in the male half of our freshmen friend group) and a hometown best friend that have since been added as honorary members.
For the purpose of consolidation, two work friends and I decided to drive together and picked up a student who needed to attend a friend's wedding of her own.
She was very perky. One of the questions she posed to me on the way there was if I was sad that we didn't get spring break like the rest of the campus.
It resulted in this conversation:
"Well dude, when you become an adult--"
"--I AM an adult!!"
"No. You are not. Anyway. When you become an adu--"
"--which I am already"
"No. You are not. Anyway. When you--"
"I'm already an adult though."
"Do you work a 9-5? No? Do you pay your own bills? No? Have you ever lived on your own for any amount of time? No? Not an adult. Now then. Allow me to answer your question."
I went on to explain to her that when you become an adult, you learn to appreciate different things. Life is not a hallway of your best friends, playing music on the quad, learning, and every meal prepared for you by someone else.
I've learned to appreciate the good coupon (there was an online deal for half off pizza from Dominos last week that saved a ton when I went on a school visit), the way I can make a shower floor shine, when I get to go to the post office, a well written grocery list, a pencil skirt that is functional, fashionable, and comfortable, the fact that on spring break we get to wear jeans to work.
It's a different life, this chapter of realism. It takes a lot of energy to be a college student. Ha. This slower pace works well for me, but it is funny. From her perspective, it all sounds miserable what I said; but those are all things I genuinely appreciate about the day to day.
Different years will bring different stories, and this is mine right now: the daily grind of the newly adult.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Nowata Pond
Each week (that I'm not working or otherwise in Texas), Julius and I go to craigslist Bible study together.
To get there from my little baby town, we take Highway 16, which is a deathpath of twists, small lanes, dumb, running woodsy creatures, and Arkansas drivers. And, because of the winter, darkness. No street lights to be found. It can be pretty terrifying. For Julius. He holds on. I'm not proud of that, but it's also not completely my fault.
We've been driving for weeks on this road and have thought we've gotten to know it pretty well.
Then, Daylight Savings happened.
It's light at 6:20pm when we leave.
The entire drive there, it was: "Woah! Look at that field of sheep!"
"Woah! That barn has a roof of solar panels!"
"Woah! Since when was there a church there!"
And my personal favorite: "Woah! Wait. That's not a lake?"
That's right. There's a certain place on the road that we were both convinced was a big pond.
It's a giant hole filled in with gravel. I guess neither of us ever thought it was odd that there was no reflection.
Darkness and light. It changes everything.
Things you thought were beautiful and good turn out to be a pit of black rocks.
Things you thought were nothing turn out to be full of life. And sheep.
For me it was just a reminder that life isn't always what it seems, both good and bad.
And what's fascinating is that you aren't able to know what's what except through discovery or time.
If we had pulled off to go check out the "pond", we would have had our imaginings about it disillusioned pretty fast. Otherwise, like what happened, it took the seasons changing for us to be shown the truth of the matter.
To get there from my little baby town, we take Highway 16, which is a deathpath of twists, small lanes, dumb, running woodsy creatures, and Arkansas drivers. And, because of the winter, darkness. No street lights to be found. It can be pretty terrifying. For Julius. He holds on. I'm not proud of that, but it's also not completely my fault.
We've been driving for weeks on this road and have thought we've gotten to know it pretty well.
Then, Daylight Savings happened.
It's light at 6:20pm when we leave.
The entire drive there, it was: "Woah! Look at that field of sheep!"
"Woah! That barn has a roof of solar panels!"
"Woah! Since when was there a church there!"
And my personal favorite: "Woah! Wait. That's not a lake?"
That's right. There's a certain place on the road that we were both convinced was a big pond.
It's a giant hole filled in with gravel. I guess neither of us ever thought it was odd that there was no reflection.
Darkness and light. It changes everything.
Things you thought were beautiful and good turn out to be a pit of black rocks.
Things you thought were nothing turn out to be full of life. And sheep.
For me it was just a reminder that life isn't always what it seems, both good and bad.
And what's fascinating is that you aren't able to know what's what except through discovery or time.
If we had pulled off to go check out the "pond", we would have had our imaginings about it disillusioned pretty fast. Otherwise, like what happened, it took the seasons changing for us to be shown the truth of the matter.
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