If my head is swimming with thoughts, then my heart might be drowning.
Life can be so complex. And as beautiful as love is and as nurturing relationships can be, sometimes the risk and vulnerability demanded threatens to overtake my fragile soul. I really don’t even know what I came here to say. I find myself sitting in silence. Silence in the car. Silence washing dishes. Silence. I feel like the part of my life that plays out beyond my fingertips is like a snow globe. One filled with rainbow sequins that is sitting on a shelf in some city that has earthquakes often. I can’t see to the center of the earth to understand all of the whys, but I see the sunlight glimmering off the thousands of colorful sequins and feel the rumble beneath my feet. Perhaps it is in those moments that I have been picked up off the shelf and I am securely in God’s hand as he shakes and shakes. I am tired of trying to control all of the pieces. So instead I stand in silence and watch the colors swirl and spin and wonder what God is thinking.
Really, today I feel like I am the snow globe that has been turned upside-down. That all of my heart’s systematic files of my yesterdays and my beliefs and my conclusions about life have been shaken out of their places and now all of the papers float in the air. Swirling and spinning. I’m not sure where they all will land, but I wonder if I am going to have to review each one and redesignate it’s home. I have a feeling this will take a while.
This was a big weekend. A loaded weekend. My dad’s wedding. Another merging of families, but also a conclusive slamming of doors on yesterday’s Normal. And in its place - a new definition for what family will now be. I had hoped to show up, fly under the radar and log some much-needed time by the pool, but the Florida skies had been saving their rain and decided that now was the opportune time to downpour. Similarly, I found the unfolding of events to call forth an outpouring of old memories and emotions. My heart intuitively reached for my younger brother and sisters. This was going to be - well, complicated at best; difficult at least. I had already walked this road before, so it was right to walk alongside them. Through the laughter at jokes that only your siblings would get. Through the diversion of competitive card games and fun art projects. Through the safety of late-night conversations laced with honesty and raw emotion. And hopefully some grounding perspective from two older sisters. But at the culminating moment of the weekend - seating, ceremony, vows, kiss - I watched the youngest of us five kids cry. And with each tear that slipped down her cheek, the snow globe shook. The papers swirled. The skies opened.
I am back home now. Dan and I have been clearing out our apartment and organizing everything back into storage. It never fails that despite garage sales and multiple trips to Goodwill, we still manage to find a box of crap that slipped through. So every load into storage always renders a pile that we leave at the dumpster on the way out. Something that just isn’t valuable enough to make the cut. That is taking up precious space. That is weighing us down and holding us back.
As Dan and I have talked circles around the snow globe, he marvels at the emotions of a woman. At the introspective psyche of this one. At the ever-winding road that God has called me to. Called us to. And from his desire to just kiss everything and make it better, he said, “You should just handle the baggage hanging around in your heart like you do the rest of your life. If it is weighing you down, just leave it at the dumpster.”
Sigh. Such wisdom. :-)
I don’t know where to go from here. I can only believe that if the snow globe is shaking, then I am distinctly in God’s hand in a more intimate and intentional way than usual. And then just stand here in silence and watch the colorful pieces swirl and spin. And then allow them to fall where they will.