Man, nothing prepares you for the week like a stress dream involving your past glory days of being in drama productions where you have a part, but you’ve memorized none of the lines, you’ve never practiced, and the solo is coming up soon! I literally woke up in a cold sweat telling myself, “It isn’t real! it isn’t real!!” Yeah, like 7 years ago and never would actually happen kind of unreal.

Ok brain, give me a break please. I’ll take the normal Darth Vader/Hitler nightmare combination from now on.

Speaking of Darth Vader, dude caused me to jump behind the couch as a young child. It’s not the voice, it’s not the velvet trimmed cape, and sure isn’t the boots. It’s the fact that he has powers you don’t and thinks that force choking is an appropriate anger management technique. It’s not. He’s like a very, very, very, angry Dad. Like you crashed the family car and your Dad also happened to DESTROY A WHOLE PLANET. And you know you are SO DEAD.

Thanks for not being an evil galactic ruler, Dad. I’m still sorry about busting your taillight my junior year.

My sister and I got hit with a plagueish cold this last week, making New Years celebrations a no-go. Needless to say, it was hard to stay positive.

Which leads me to my final realization:

I am a nerd. (become one, and you too can have drama nerd nightmares seven years later!!)

My husband and I, spent a vast majority of this weekend other than chores and cleaning the house either watching Star Wars movies or playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (circa 2004). Which if you’ve never played it, basically gives YOU the POWER to choose through many different scenarios if you’re on the dark side or the light side. Aka are you gonna be a good guy or a bad guy? Are you going to slice innocent people with a lightsaber, or slice bad guys reluctantly with your lightsaber after talking doesn’t work? SO fun. To all of you peeps out there embracing your inner Star Wars nerd, may the force be with you!

Fact is, stories about families struggling against the universe to work out their ish, fight or embrace their anger, and green old dudes offering training on a snake infested planet are all very relatable to us.

Well, not green dudes on snake infested planets. But, how many times have you underestimated a friend or acquaintance to find they had a wisdom and strength that proved invaluable?

Ok, here are some pictures of my paints like I promised last time:

 

Opening up these bad boys promptly led to painting while eating pad thai.

This week my husband has to get up at 4:15 instead of 4:45am. Yuck. We got a light dusting of snow in Bellingham this week so I was happy to hear that he made it to work safely this morning.

The other night, my husband was talking about figuring out retirement, changing the headlight on his car, and paying old medical bills, and I was like…

“When did we become adults?!”

Then he reminded me we played a Star Wars game for most of the afternoon. Phew! That was a close one…

If you need me I’ll be convincing myself that grocery shopping is more important than achieving Jedi status on my nerdy game.

-K

I have new watercolor paints. Honey-based watercolor cubes from France that are ridiculously expensive. I’ve dreamt of owning them since I took a watercolor class in High School (thank you, Dad). I’ve always compromised for the cheap craft-store sets or the kind that comes in tubes and isn’t “concentrated.”  Each time I’ve reached for my purchase, I can hear my watercolor instructor saying “You really need to invest in the better kind…” God bless that art teacher, really all of my art teachers, for embracing my imperfect paintings and never shutting me down, but rather gently prodding me to focus on technique and to embrace the elements I can’t control. You can’t control water, and neither can you control every aspect of watercolor. Pictures will come later, since they’re still packed up in my husband’s car and he’s gone to work.

One of my new year’s resolutions my Freshman year of college, was to learn how to French braid my hair. And to skip rocks. I know, not very monumental goals, but they were two skills I’d always shied away from because of fear of failure. Today, five years later (I’m young, ok?), I can french braid my hair and sort-of skip rocks. Huzzah! For Christmas Eve, my sister braided/twisted my hair into an Elsa braid, and I’m delighted to admit it made me feel like I too could “Let it gooooo.” (If you don’t know what I’m referencing, just ask any girl under the age of 12).

 

Where did you see yourself being at the end of this year? Happier, healthier, and maybe wealthier? Or perhaps the pessimist in you hoped nothing would change at all, because change would only bring disaster.This is a false dichotomy – to think the next year  can be labeled “good” or “bad.” When in reality, Each year is a broken picture, and each moment is a small shard of glass put together to form a beautiful mosaic. Let the light shine through your last year, and prove to that shard of painful memories that the picture will prove true.

 

What if you can’t remember the last year? The pain and the good just can’t be distinguished and you will jubilantly toast the last year goodbye, because your heart and mind have already decided to move on.

 

“Yet I am always with you;

you hold me by your right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will take me into your glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

and earth has nothing I desire besides you.”

Psalm 77

This blog does not serve as my diary, but I’d be lying if I said one did not influence the other. I decided to write a short letter to my “self” of December 2014. A self-prescribed therapy exercise. And I realized my entire letter boiled down to this thought:

You are perpetually dependent upon your savior regardless of the infirmities or diagnosis of your heart.

That will ring true year after year.

This year, I dare you to write a letter to “yourself” of a year ago, instead of the traditional letter to your future self (please tell me my youth group was not the only one to have this tradition). How can we dance into the next chapter, if our past clings to our heels?

The  Bible verse above was given to me by a friend the day before my Mom’s cancer diagnoses. She simply handed me a notecard and said “I think you need this.” Which is akin to strapping a life jacket on a person minutes before the tidal wave comes. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Oh the irony of God’s delight – born in the parched soil of destitution rather than the fertile ground of achievement…We don’t often declare our impotence. Admission of failure is not usually admission into joy. Complete confession is not commonly followed by total pardon. But then again, God has never been governed by what is common.” Grace for the Moment, Max Lucado.

I don’t want to follow a common God. A God who is caught in the same cycles of this world that we are struggling against. I want to follow One who constantly humbles himself – who is more apt to give up power to accomplish his goals than to assume his full glory. Am I willing to do the same? To admit that the goals I have in mind for myself and for this year won’t make me happy, but rather the times I’ve stumbled and hit my face on the pavement are where true joy and forgiveness can happen…but only in the aftermath.

 

I hope for snow.

 

-K