A glimpse into the chaos.
He says.
She does.
He steers.
She goes.
He promises,
Then breaks his word.
He gets offended
That she has trouble
Trusting him
When he is reliable.
She questions
What she did wrong.
He wants more.
She needs less.
She starts
To tell him
How she feels,
But she worries
That he will be
Upset at her
Or say she is
Accusing him.
She stays silent.
He reacts at the quiet.
He drew the lines
She balances inside.
I trip
over
myself daily
bump
into doorways
stumble
on the absence
of an actual anything and
find random bruises on myself
from stuff I run into.
I trip
over
my words too.
I collide
into them
or fall
through them
as they trip
over
each other.
They’re slippery
and either too big
or too small
for me to hold.
I reach for them
trying to grab
the letters
to rearrange them
so I can smash
them together
into sounds.
Instead,
I lose my balance reaching
and smack
my face
into a wall.
Is this really a good idea?
Am I jumping in
alert and
prepared
or carelessly running
tripping over my better judgment
into something
I should just leave
alone?
I expected difficulty
hurdles
frustration.
I probably should have expected
wavering
second-guessing
overthinking.
I feel a prodding
to do this
from outside of me.
But I need to make sure
my motives are good –
because I would
have to put
myself
out there,
but I don’t want it to be
about me.
Learning,
but at a weird
in-between
stage.
For the most part,
junior highers tend to be
uncoordinated and
awkward.
Their limbs are growing too fast
for them to handle,
so they seem to lose gross motor skills
for a time
and bump into stuff
everywhere.
They have a hard time
paying attention to, well, pretty much
anything.
I worked with junior highers
when I was in college.
There was something so fun and raw
about that stage of life:
the attempt to figure everything out,
the glaring insecurity,
the amazingness of so many new things,
the ignorance of even more and
the a-ha bulb lighting up all over the place
like fireflies.
When I think about how awkward I was
when I was in junior high,
I cringe
wince
recoil,
eventually laugh and
shake my head
at the absurdity.
But then the a-ha firefly lit up
and the puzzle pieces started to put themselves together
in front of me.
(I think) I loved those kids so much
and could identify with them so well
because in many ways,
I am still an awkward junior higher.
Sure, I’m an adult –
but I bump into everything,
trip on things that aren’t there,
talk toofastsometimes and
too slow others,
overshare and
undershare,
trying to figure out the balance
with different people
and myself,
and I’m still trying to make sense
of the world and
the mess
in my head.
“A failure is merely the non-presence of success.
Any fool can accomplish failure.” – Drew Baylor,
Elizabethtown*
Kind of like people who say
they aren’t afraid of heights,
they are only afraid of
falling,
I’m not usually afraid of
trying something new,
but
(I think)
I am probably afraid
of failure.
It’s not that I’m afraid of failure as a generalization.
(I don’t think.)
But in certain areas, I tend to play it safe.
I mean, I fail at things.
All.the.time.
But I’m not sure I take enough
chances.
I’m not sure I allow myself to fail
at the right things.
Am I a total chicken?
Am I afraid of what some people might think?
Would I be devastated
if I crashed
and shredded myself
into grapefruit pulp?
Maybe.
Yes.
At this point,
what I worry about
isn’t even failure
exactly –
at least not
entirely.
Yes, I’m not ready.
Yes, I’m unsure.
Yes, I may be stalling.
But mostly,
(I think)
I am afraid of the
extreme vulnerability.
* Elizabethtown ©2005
I never heard it
that way before:
Just use what He gave you (Romans 12:6a)
even if you can’t name
or define it.*
How things are named
specified
defined
varies greatly.
Does it change the intention
meaning
use
or implementation?
Have I just been overthinking this
the whole time?
I still don’t understand what it means exactly
to use something
I can’t fully identify.
But He’s bigger than that,
which means He can use it
somehow
even if I don’t actually know
what to call it.
Rather than trying to
figure out what it actually is,
maybe I need to just be willing
to let Him work (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)
through me.
*Dr. Rick Taylor, The Anatomy of a Disciple: So Many Followers. So Few Disciples. ©2013
I can’t
un
s
c
r
a
m
b
l
e
the mess.
Sometimes even once it’s outside
my head,
it’s all still
just a mess
of words and thoughts and scenes and ideas
that don’t fully connect.
And if –
in the rare occurrence –
that mess
finally
does form itself into
something solid,
it's too prosaic
to repeat.
Anxiety
feeds
on my slowly developing confidence.
I’m learning,
but so far
behind.
Asked to do even more,
I am honored
excited
and still
questioning
everything.
It’s not that I don’t believe
I can do this.
I can.
(I think.)
It’s that I believe
this is so much
bigger
than just me,
and I don’t want to hinder
the process or
the project –
as it exponentially grows
at warp speed.
I want to be part of it
and not let it race past.
I want to help it
improve it and
refine it
until the obscure simplicity
breaks
through
into
vibrant understanding –
meeting people
wherever they are
and not asking them
to become anything else
first.
Confusion
taunts me
taps me on one shoulder
and sneaks around
behind the other.
Is the world suddenly
different?
Or is this some eccentric
April Fool’s joke?
I wonder if the water is safe.
They all came from
nowhere
and all at the same time
as if covertly strategized
or the planets suddenly shifted
into some strange version
of alignment
we aren’t currently aware of.
I’m stepping out anyway
reaching out
for the spontaneity,
but it seems like it may
disappear
at any second
into a playground prank.
It was eleven years ago, the Saturday before Easter, just like today. He asked, and I said yes.
I knew I loved Jeff, but I didn’t know what to expect. Sure, I had been told marriage takes work, and it’s not always easy. And I thought I understood that. But it’s a very different thing when you are the one who has to choose to love – even when you may not feel it.
We aren’t perfect. We fight. We bicker. Sometimes we unintentionally hurt each other. But we love much harder. And by love, I mean we still pursue each other, still choose to be with each other, and be fully in it, no matter what. Even after this long, we are still learning what marriage is.
I’ve seen marriages thrive and I’ve seen marriages crash. I don’t know how people do this without God – without His help and influence and prodding. Because choosing to love him means letting go of my selfishness. Every day.
I definitely didn’t totally know what I was in for. But Jeff is my Jeff. We are each other’s other. He’s still my favorite, and I would absolutely say yes again.
