Surprises

I love surprises.

No, that's not right.

I love, love, love, love, LOVE surprises. Yup. That about covers it.

I had a hard day at hospice last week. I came home exhausted and discouraged. Then I checked the mailbox. Not one, but TWO unexpected surprises!

A note from my dear, dear, dear friend Inga, along with a CD. On that CD were three songs from one of my favorite artists--Jake Armerding--who has a new album out that I hadn't even heard about. It was like musical manna from heaven.

A small package from my grandmother who lives in Michigan, containing two really good make-up brushes! The kind I would never, ever splurge on for myself! She had read my previous blog post and put them in the mail as a gesture of love.

After such a crummy, difficult day, I found myself sitting at the dining room table with these two beautiful gifts from two people I love so much, tearing up a little. "You knew I needed this today, didn't you, God?" I asked.

While I love surprises, I hate them, too. I love gifts, letters, concert tickets (thank you, Daryl!!!), unexpected trips. But I hate the unexpected turns life sometimes takes. As a child I once threw a screaming fit outside my preschool when Miss Cindy, my teacher, was absent. There was a substitute teacher in there and I was bound and determined not to have any part of that. Dad used to say that I'm not "good at hitting the curve ball." He's a sports metaphor kind of guy.

My life has been full of surprises lately, both the kind I love and the kind I hate.

I am leaving Nashville. I have moved nine times in ten years, and this will be my tenth move.

I am moving somewhere closer to home, and to do something new and exciting and joyful and challenging.

That's all I can say for now, but more news will be forthcoming.

I love the new possibilities of what is to come, but I hate that I'm leaving Nashville. I hate that this new turn of events means I'll be living apart from Daryl for a few months (again... I know...). I hate that I have to move again.

But I love the excitement of a life spent following Jesus. I love that I'll soon be doing what I feel called and gifted to do. I love that my life will soon be marked by some real stability and that Daryl and I will have the chance to put down some roots.

I'm headed north.

More soon...

Whatcha Readin'?

Daryl knows when I'm healthy and happy because I'll have two or three novels going at one time. One will be at the head of our bed, another in the back of the car for waits at the DMV or the dentist's office. A third will be sitting on the coffee table, or in the dining room where I eat my breakfast.

I devour books. Love them. Live off of them. Nom. Nom. Nom.

Sadly, right now I find myself in a bit of a novel dry spell. I'm just not that inspired by anything new I've seen out there (Jonathan Franzen and I are not good author-reader buddies, for one), and I have not yet hunted down our local library to check out what they have in store.

I've just started Jeanette Walls' Half Broke Horses, which is  beginning to be wonderful, but I want more. I am the Cookie Book Monster.

So I'm asking you: what's a good book you've read lately? Why did you like it?

Thanks to: http://scientopia.org/blogs/childsplay/2010/08/08/blind-item-cookie-monster/ for the Cookie Monster pic!

Oh Tennessee...

During the past week, I've seen/heard/witnessed the following two things:

1. People crying on the nightly news. Why? Were they broken up about another flood? An accident? An approaching hurricane? Nope. They were crying because tonight is the final Brooks & Dunn concert EVER.

2. A grown man, professionally dressed, use the phrase: "Oh me oh my!"

Tennessee makes me smile. Sometimes it makes me laugh. People here don't seem to take themselves overly seriously. All of this is good. Very good.

Where AM I?

Daryl and I ran all of those annoying new-to-the-area errands yesterday. He changed our insurance from NJ to TN. We got new driver's licenses. We sat in some traffic (yeah, still figuring out when and where rush hour occurs in these here parts).

We were surprised to find out that the place where you get your new driver's license (the "Department of Safety," which, from the name, I would assume is where they inspect restaurants for health violations, but apparently is not) is not where you can also get new license plates for your car. So we headed out with our new DLs in hand to get our plates changed.

This particular office closed at 5pm. We arrived at 4:54pm and the line was halfway down the hall. This wasn't going to happen, but we decided to wait in line anyway. Just in case.

At 5pm a woman came out from behind the desk with a stack of labels in her hand. She handed each of us in the line one label and said, "We'll take all of you, but you're the last ones. If anyone comes after you, tell them to come back on Monday."

Daryl and I were flabbergasted. They were staying open late... for us? It was 5:03 on a FRIDAY. Why...?

We happily waited in line, and made it to the front around 5:20. The woman behind the desk filled out the necessary forms while chatting pleasantly with us both.

"Why do you stay open late?" we asked.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Well... we were halfway down the hall, and it's after five."

"We wouldn't want you to have to come back on Monday!" she said, surprised.

"This wouldn't happen in New Jersey," I said.

"Really? Well whyever not?" she asked.

Just then there was a knock on the office door. The woman went to it, ready to explain to the would-be customer that they were now closed. It turned out to be the first customer of the day, who had returned at the day's end holding a box of cheesecake. 

"This is for you," she said to the woman. "I work at the Cheesecake Factory around the corner, and you mentioned that strawberry is your favorite."

By now my jaw was hanging open and Daryl's eyes were wide. The woman said goodbye, took her cheesecake, and returned to help us.

"That was so nice," she said. "I mentioned that I like cheesecake, so she brought me some! Isn't that sweet?"

Where am I living? Places stay open a few moments just to "be nice," and customers at the DMV return with large boxes of cheesecake just to "be nice." I'm 98% sure that if we had looked longingly enough at that cheesecake the woman would have sent us home with half of it.

Gosh, this place is nice.

Observations on Tennessee

Since I've now lived in Tennessee for eight days, I am an expert on Tennessee. No, really.

Actually I just wanted to share some observations from my first week here (much of which has been spent unpacking and running move-in errands to Target and Home Depot...). After I've been here months or years, they will surely change. There's nothing quite like the culture shock of the first week in a new place.

This list is not meant to communicate anything snide (such as: Tennessee is silly) or stereotypical (such as: people in the south are all ____), it's merely a list of observations gleaned from the past eight days.

1. People seem much more polite in Tennessee than in any state I've ever lived in.
This is, frankly, kind of unnerving after living in New Jersey. I'm torn between wanting to hug them ("Thank you for being NICE to me!") and wanting to check to make sure my wallet's still there.

2. The culture is more explicitly Christian than in the northeast or midwest.
There were Bible verses on the artwork on the walls of the hospital in town (don't worry - I was there for a meeting, not because I caught something terrible). There are about six decent Christian radio stations in town (SIX?!?!). Businesses often play these stations. It's just assumed that you go to church. We do go to church, but it's still odd when it's assumed.

3. It's legal to talk on the phone/text while driving. This is a terrible idea.
Many of the good folks of NJ are bad drivers. Very aggressive, very angry, very much in an utter hurry all the time. The folks in TN seem to be better drivers when they aren't on the phone. They seem to be on the phone a lot. I almost got mowed down in the Kroger parking lot by a soccer mom twenty minutes ago.

The Jersey girl in me muttered, not very charitably, "Thanks for almost killing me! Hope that phone call was REALLY IMPORTANT!" I'm going to need to stop doing that here.

4. The spirit of Tennessee seems to be, "It's really hot, but we'll do everything we would normally do even if it's 100 degrees outside."
People are washing the windows of a skyscraper in town today. It's 89 degrees out (with 217% humidity), and it isn't even noon. An elderly gentleman came by last week to mow our lawn - apparently he's contracted with our landlady - and we were utterly appalled. It was about 98 outside. We brought him a bottle of cold water and he kindly waved us off.

"I'm fine," he said. "This is normal." On the surface of the sun, maybe.

5. People talk about church like it's the weather.
Daryl and I went out to dinner a couple of days ago, and the waiter (who was a hipster British guy with messed up hair and an air of utter cool about him) found out we were new to the area and asked us if we'd found a church yet. Um... what? We appreciated his input, but it was so odd to have someone in the service industry just assume that we went to church. It was his third question after "where are you from" and "do you like Nashville." Odd indeed.

6. Sundresses are the thing to wear if you're a 20-something woman.
Seriously. When I wear shorts or pants out I feel very out of place. It's one way to beat the heat, I guess!


7. People in the service industry expect a greeting and a little bit of conversation before engaging in a business transaction.
I went into a meeting today all businesslike (as I've been trained in the northeast), and the receptionist responded with, "Good morning."

Taken aback, I responded in kind.

"How are you this morning?" she asked.

"Um, good?" I responded. "Can I--"

"It's a beautiful day," she said. By this point I was starting to understand the drill.

"Yes it is!" I said. "And how are you?"

After another thirty seconds of banter she helped me with what I was after. It reminds me of when my family traveled to France a decade ago and my dad kept getting reprimanded by salesclerks for his brusque, American manner.

"I'd like a--" he'd begin.

"Bonjour," they'd say, firmly.

"Right," he'd say. "I'd like a--"

"BONJOUR," they'd say again.

"Oh," he'd say, finally understanding. "Bonjour."

"What would you like?" they'd respond.

I'm going to have to relearn some social cues around these parts.


8. It's freaking hot here.
Oh my goodness. Daryl and I tried to be brave and go to the Nashville zoo (the zoo is one of my favorite, favorite things to do), and we only lasted an hour. We each drank a full water bottle and a soda, and we only lasted an hour. We melted into puddles of sweat and both came home with headaches. This will take some getting used to... Or else I'll stay inside until November. Either way.


9. It's the south. There will be bugs.
My word are there bugs. We live in the city, so we have it better than most country folks in this regard, but STILL... God bless the swallows and mourning doves that have built nests around our garage. They spend most of the day hopping around our front yard swallowing things. I want to truck in about fifty more of them.


10. I like it here.
I really do.

Ouch. My ____ Hurts!

I have been seriously out of shape for the past three years.

That's not a sentence I thought I'd ever write. Growing up I played ice hockey and soccer and ran track. I was always in shape.

In college I rock climbed four or five days a week. I had shoulder muscles on my shoulder muscles. I had triceps on my triceps. I could do (wait for it... wait for it...) NINE pull-ups in a row. It was rad.

But then I went to graduate school and spent all my time hunched over my laptop writing papers. The time I had where I wasn't hunched over my laptop writing papers I was either working dozens of hours at an internship, teaching classes at a local university, working as a teaching assistant at the seminary, or (most often) all three. After days like those I would be lucky if I could cook dinner before I collapse onto the couch to do the next day's reading.

I learned a heckuvalot, but I sure didn't exercise.

By this point in the post, if you don't know me personally, you're probably picturing a giant, flabby person. That's the thing, though - I haven't really gained any weight. This is good and bad. Good because I still fit in my clothes, but bad because I had no real incentive to get back in shape. Why bother?

Well, now is the time. This summer I've spent time with family in northern Wisconsin and I have decided - nay, vowed - to get back in shape. No matter what. At any cost. My rationale is this: if I can't exercise now, with no real time commitments, I will never exercise again.

Fifteen days ago, I began ninety days of insanity.

I began P90X.

P90X is basically a 90-day boot camp to get in great shape. It's a big infomercial seller, but my parents had the good fortune to find it at a local thrift store for $20.00, so I'm doing it for free right now. You exercise for between an hour and an hour and a half six days a week at intense levels. You work out your arms, legs, abs, and cardio. You push yourself to the point of wanting to throw up. It's insanity, I tell you!

After two weeks, my everything hurts. On the upside, I am beginning to see a bit of toning in my arms, legs, and abs. And I'm sleeping better than I have in years. I mean, like the dead, sleeping. It's glorious.

Daryl's doing it with me. It's hard. It's glorious. It's necessary. It's time.

We'll keep you posted.

Money and Jesus: Part 1

"I hate money," proclaims Jo March, heroine of Little Women (and of bookish young girls everywhere).

Her sister is sick, her father is away fighting the Civil War, and her mother needs an expensive train ticket to fetch the doctor. Admirable, spontaneous Jo does what many a Civil War-era heroine did when faced with an expense too great to pay out of pocket: she sells her hair.

This leads to the best line in the whole movie (Little sister Amy, upon seeing the shorn Jo: "But Jo, your one beauty!"), but it is Jo's first proclamation that makes my point today. Oh, money. How difficult you are.

My husband and I have been graduate students, on and off, for the past five years. One of my favorite Wheaton professors was fond of saying, "The nice thing about staying in graduate school is that you get really good at being poor."

This is true. We're almost rocket-scientists when it comes to finding deals (there's a $4 movie theater on the other side of town!) or saving money (cooking without meat 4-5 days a week can save a bundle). We get tips from other grad-school friends and family who are also quite adept (and often even MORE adept) at making ends meet when those ends are quite short to begin with.

We certainly haven't suffered during our graduate school years - family and friends been exceedingly (almost ridiculously) generous and we've budgeted carefully and thoughtfully. We also aren't grumpy about our state of affairs. We love learning and ideas, and this is the path we've chosen for a reason. Investment banking just doesn't have the same siren call, to us!

Still, having less money usually means being inconvenienced. We won't starve, certainly. But we'll wait at the airport three hours for a ride instead of paying for a cab ($60!!!). We'll wait until Monday to go to the Urgent Care clinic with a bad sore throat instead of going to the Emergency Department on a Saturday ($$$$$!!!). We take walks together for dates and get our books from the library. A real splurge is a night at Maggiano's or Outback. Concerts are largely a thing of the past. We stay with friends whenever we can while traveling (which has the added bonus of fun visits on top of staying in our budget).

Our premarital counselors told us that God usually gives every couple one person who is the "gas pedal" and one who is the "brake" when it comes to spending money. This can (obviously) cause some conflict.

I'll admit that I am the gas pedal in our relationship. Yet, my ability to spend money really quickly is not always because I'm generous. Usually it's because I don't handle much of the budgeting, so I don't know what we'll be sacrificing if I splurge on an item. I don't usually want to spend tons of money on myself (though cute clothes can be tempting, to say the least...), but I do want to give it away. I want to buy the BEST wedding gift. I want to put a thousand dollars in the offering plate. I want to buy out Baby Gap for my cute little nieces. When friends come for dinner I want to cook steak, darn it, and not the cheap kind.

Daryl (luckily) is a bit wiser. He is our brake pedal. He's the one who asks if we really need something, or if we just want it. He helps weigh price and convenience against budget and savings. Though sometimes (as he'll readily admit), he can brake too much. We're learning to balance. We're learning to give. We're learning to save. We're learning to be wise.

I've been challenged in my thinking about money this summer. For one thing, I'm staying with my parents up in Wisconsin (read: no rent payments for a few months and lots and lots of meals for which we don't pay). It's an incredible gift. It's amazing. It's restful. And it's given me some space to relax and think about money in a way other than, "Oh goodness, we MUST STICK TO THE BUDGET OR WE WILL HAVE NO SHOES AND NO FOOD!!!"

I don't want my relationship with money to be one of fear. I don't want to hate it, like Jo. I also don't want to love it, as that can obviously lead to all sorts of problems. What I really want is to treat it as another aspect of living life under the power and grace of Jesus. The Lord of the universe is Lord over my wallet, my bank account, and my desire for a new pair of shoes, too.

Some good friends of our family teach at churches and conferences about stewardship. Recently they've started keeping a log of all the ways God has blessed them financially through family, friends, gifts, and surprises. This is admirable, and it's something Daryl and I have started to do. It's so easy in the middle of a financial drain (a crazy vet bill, a dental crown, graduate school) to feel suffocated. How will we make it through this? Now we have something tangible to look at, to see where God has cared for us in the past, and will certainly care for us in the future.

But here's the crazy thing about these friends: Not only do they keep a record of these bountiful gifts; they tithe off of them.

That means if their church sends them on a camping trip that would have costed, oh, $400 for their family of five, they put $40 in the offering plate. If someone were to donate a car worth $5,000, then $500 would go in. This is so incredibly brave and full of faith that it almost scares me to think about, especially coming from a graduate school budget.

I don't think that this is the solution for everyone when learning to be a good steward of what God has given, but it does give me pause.

For this family, tithing is worship. For Daryl and I it is often either blind giving (Daryl does most of our budgeting, so when I'm tempted to be crazily-generous in the offering plate, it's often because I don't count the cost, which isn't really generosity as much as it is randomness) or fearful giving. I want our tithing to be an act of worship. I want to give to God because of what God has bountifully given to us, even if our piggy banks feel light.

*Image borrowed from: http://ingridgraceandaudrey.blogspot.com/2008/09/re-let-it-be-love3.html

Ten on Tuesday (Take Nine)

It's been awhile since I've ventured into one of these, but hey, a girl's got to get back on the horse again sometime. So here we go... Summer-themed!

1. What's the best summer job you ever had?
My favorite was probably working as a high school staffer at a camp out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was out there for over a month helping to lead trips to Yellowstone with campers, cook and clean up in the kitchen, and clean the cabins. Between all of those things, I hiked dozens of trails in the Tetons, learned to rock climb, and developed a massive crush on a guy from their Bible College. I also discovered my love of blueberry-pineapple smoothies and cut all my hair off. It was a great summer.

2. What's the worst?
I don't think I've had a worst, necessarily, but it is tough to be stuck inside on a beautiful, sunny day. Those days are meant for being outside, at least for a lunch break!

3. What's your favorite summer activity?
I love summer walks. Walking down the road, walking to get dinner, walking around the zoo, walking through a flea market. I love not feeling freezing or rushing from one place to another because it's cold. Most of my summers have been spent in places far north of the Mason-Dixon line (Wisconsin, Chicago, New Jersey, Wyoming, Colorado), so summer is in the 70s and it's glorious. Though I haven't lived in the deep south yet, so maybe walking in the winter will be my favorite activity while I'm there...

4. What's one summer smell that brings back a summer memory?
The smell of cut grass reminds me of my dad mowing the lawn in the summer. No matter where I am across the country, that summer smell brings back a picture of my dad pushing our elderly lawnmower up the steep hill on the side of the house. It was dedication, that's for sure.

5. What's the best summer dinner of all time?
Anything on the grill. Chicken. Corn on the cob. Kabobs. Mixed veggies. Steak. Burgers. I would eat pretty much anything grilled. Pineapple. Asparagus. With watermelon on the side, of course.

I also love how gluten-free friendly summer is. It's pretty easy to make things gluten-free if you grill them. Peppers with olive oil? Great. Burgers with garlic and mozzarella? Perfect. Baked potatoes? Hard to mess those up!

6. What summer activity don't you like (and why)?
Tubing. I don't know why, but being pulled fast behind a boat makes me want to crawl under a seat with a towel over my head. It's scary. There are no lanes and tons of people drinking and driving boats (my family-of course-does not drink and drive boats, but thousands of tourists who visit the northwoods definitely, definitely do) in erratic fashions. I don't want to lose a leg to a boat motor. Nope. Don't want to do it. It's almost a phobia.

7. When does summer begin where you live?
In New Jersey? April. But they don't turn on the air conditioning until May, making for some very cranky Princeton students.

In Wisconsin? It depends on the year. Sometimes June. Sometimes July. Sometimes only for a day or two before fall begins.

In Tennessee? I'm not sure yet, but probably sooner rather than later... My real question will be when WINTER begins (if at all...).

8. When does it end?
In New Jersey? October.

In Wisconsin? August. Or September, if it's a lucky year.

In Tennessee? Hmm... November? December? Ever?

9. What was the craziest thing you ever did during a summer?
When I was in high school I went bridge jumping with a bunch of friends from the youth group. Not that smart, and not that safe, but loads of fun. Definitely in the years before whatever that brain piece that tells you "Stop! That isn't safe!" kicks in...

Another summer some friends and I traveled up the Black River, jumped off cliffs into the river, and swam in the rapids. Again, not safe, but loads of fun.

This past summer I worked as a chaplain in an ICU unit. It was exhausting, exhilarating, enlightening, and occasionally even entertaining. I mostly loved it and sometimes hated it, but I always loved what I learned and how different things were each day. As for crazy, when any machine in the ICU starts beeping, things get really crazy really quickly...

10. What's one thing you don't like about summer?
Some days I don't like the pressure to be outside. Some days I want to curl up with a book and not feel guilty for not making the most of the sunshine. But only some days.

Apartment Hunting

Daryl and I are in search of a new home. One that is not in New Jersey (woot!). One that is close both to his school and to the hospital where I'll be working.

I have an utter love/hate relationship with apartment/house hunting.

One the one hand, I love it. It's exciting to dream and explore, to decide what is most important to us for the next phase of life, to plan on making a home home. I get excited about how we'll arrange things, what spots the cats will find in which to snuggle up, what our view will look like.

One the other hand, it can be very discouraging. I found one apartment complex I loved (seemingly safe, affordable, close to what we need it to be close to, with nice floor plans) and then read some reviews.

"I loved living here, until the shooting."

Eep.

Others warn of brown recluse infestations. Um, excuse me? If I see one poisonous spider, we are moving OUT. Is that just an innocent northern thing to say? (Probably).

Another review of a hopeful place: "Live here if you love mold!"

Yuck.

As two-former (and one current) grad. students, we don't have an unlimited budget, which, of course, limits us from just plunking down our Black AmEx card at the Grand Hotel and asking for room service. We don't need anything fancy, just a place to call home. Preferably one where we can paint the walls and decorate it to look like home (and not like an institution, as our previous white-walled seminary apartment could look at times). I would also like to do laundry in my own apartment, not in a mold-infested basement as I have been doing for the past three years. When Daryl and I moved out in May most of the stuff in our basement storage unit was moldy and needed to be thrown in the trash. And I did my laundry down there for three years. SO gross. Though I may be willing to budge on having our own washer and dryer and just use a community laundry room if it is not infested with mold. Maybe.

One of the trickiest parts of this process is that we're up in Wisconsin right now, hanging with family, so we can't easily drive by and check places out. We're planning a foray down to Nash-Vegas in a couple of weeks to see places in person, though. That seems to be the only way to know for sure if a place is truly livable.

Top three things I want in an apartment or rental home?

1. Safety. I want to be able to walk from the car to the apartment at midnight without looking over my shoulder and/or running.
2. A guest room for friends.
3. No poisonous insects/spiders/pests. I don't mind the occasional bout of ants or ladybugs (I grew up in the woods!), but I draw the line at things that could actually make me, my dear husband, or one of my cats lose an appendage and/or die.

Daryl's top three:

1. Light. Lots and lots of light. (He's from California. He can't help himself.)
2. Something newer or cute and vintage.
3. Something affordable so that we can pay off loans/save some money.

Any other things we should put on at the top of our lists? Anyone have a beautiful, new, insect-free, place we should take a look at, or an apartment complex in Nashville that they've loved? Class? Class? Bueller?

Gratitude

I'm back! As promised! Welcome to June, friends.

I have lots of updates to... update. Taking finals, vacation, moving, driving across the country, graduation, saying goodbye, starting a new chapter of life, leaving NJ (!), moving back in with my husband permanently, heading to Wisconsin for the summer. Before I get into all that (which I will, soon!), I wanted to begin with what has been at the forefront of my mind for the past month: gratitude.

This has been a crazy-difficult season of life. From being apart from Daryl to finishing my degree in Princeton to working to moving, Daryl and I have both been quite exhausted. During our most recent long drive (24 hours from Princeton to Eagle River, WI), we talked about what has gotten us through this season. People. Our dear, dear family and friends who have sacrificed, loved on us, cared for us, and blessed us. Without them, we would have probably fallen to pieces at some juncture along this long, long road. What am I grateful for at the end of this month of May?

1. A family who loves me and often knows what Daryl and I need before we ask. My parents took us on the most restful vacation of my life (a cruise! to Mexico! with special gf food!), and then came back to Princeton where my Dad and Daryl proceeded to carry every heavy thing from our apartment into the moving POD. And then they filled up our fridge. And then they let us come to WI for a couple of months to have a real summer of lake-swimming, grilling out, and craft projects. Does life get better? I submit that it does not!

2. Friends who sheltered Daryl for the past nine months. How do you thank people who you'd never even met before this August who invite your husband into their home for the year? And cook him dinner when he's losing his mind during final exams? And become dear friends? You can't... There's no language of thanks big enough for that.

3. A friend who loaned us her car for the year. Her fun, practical, cool, sunroof-equipped car. We didn't have to buy or rent a second car (read: crazy expensive for cash-strapped graduate students!). Again, how do you begin to thank someone for this?

4. Friends from Princeton. Saying goodbye was hard. These friends have brought us food and smoothies, provided incredible and insightful conversation partners, challenged us to live out our faith, and helped us with the little finishing touches of moving (Daryl carried out our last three heavy pieces of furniture assisted by three different friends, all of whom dropped everything the moment they heard we needed a bit of heavy lifting help).

5. Friends from home. It feels so good to be headed toward a summer surrounded by friends (and family!) from home. We never have enough time to visit, catch up, celebrate, and hang out. And perhaps this summer we will. Or at least, we'll have a little bit more.

6. Friends and family from CA. When we were in town we stayed with some dear, dear friends and their cute little chinchilla, Rudy. We made it to the Mother's Day celebration brunch for Daryl's dear grandma and saw almost all of the rest of his family. We had a great dinner with his mom. We visited some other dear friends, even though we were only in town for a short while. We went to Disneyland for free. You really can't beat that.

6. The little things. My final trip to the dentist in NY yielded no cavities. (If you know me well you know that's actually more of a BIG thing than a little thing). Disneyland makes gluten-free EVERYTHING for the same price as the normal stuff. I won an unexpected award at Princeton that led to a surprising check from the seminary that helped us a great deal with our move. I finally got around to getting a Princeton Public Library card and loaded up with books on tape for our long drive. Iron Man 2 was better than expected. The cats stayed healthy. There happened to be a yard sale the same day I realized we had left my old bike out of our POD (and the POD was picked up!), so I sold it for $30 in less than an hour. The little things have been so wonderful.

7. Our great God. I've said this before, but in one of her books Anne Lamott comments that her two most often-used prayers are "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." I have said both of these many, many, MANY times in the past month. And Jesus is always there. And when I don't have an ounce left of strength, he provides. And when I'm at the end of my rope, he helps me hang on. And when finals threaten to make me go crazy or the distance from Daryl threatened to make me fall apart, he cared for me. The toughest seasons are often the ones of closest fellowship with the Father, and I've felt that this season. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

More to come (including LOTS of photos)! Thanks for your patience with me this May. There is lots of blogging to come this summer.

Happy June 1. Happy summer. Happy end to a season of running, running, running. As I write this the breeze off of Yellow Birch Lake is coming in my window, ruffling my hair. The cats are sitting on the window ledge watching the trees. Daryl is upstairs eating cereal and I am just about to head to breakfast. It's 10am.

Summer rocks.

Sabbatical

I hate it when blogs go dormant with no warning. Those I read I read regularly, and when I am greeted by the same post for weeks on end I get a bit annoyed. Where are the posts I go there to read? Where is the love, friends?

So I'm informing you all of my brief sabbatical. For the month of May, Autumn All Year will be dormant. This is for about a dozen reasons:

As of now I am less than 48 hours (less than 2 DAYS!!!) away from a permanent reunion with Daryl. I cannot WAIT. We have a lot of catching up/snuggling/laughing/hugging/kissing/talking/sharing/brainstorming to do.

Following that, Daryl and I will be driving across the country to return the car we borrowed from a dear friend. She's currently residing in Monterey, California. A 39-hour drive. I have lots of books on tape. Woot.

Following that, we'll head out on a week-long vacation with my parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!). We will do nothing but eat, sleep, and lie in the sun, recharging our ba'tries.

Following that, we'll return to Princeton where I will 1) graduate, 2) pack up our apartment, 3) drive back across the country to Wisconsin with two cats in the backseat. A 28-hour drive. Double woot.  I'm sure I'll have some stories about that one...

In between all of these things I have to turn in my final grades at Rider, send a slew of thank-you notes, clean up this apartment, pack, find boxes, pack some more, say goodbye to some incredible, incredible friends, and drive a whole heckuvalot. I am exhausted from a long year (see previous posts...) and just doing my best to put one foot in front of the other. It has been a long, hard year. It's ending, and I've made it, but just barely.

So rather than leave sporadic, unthinking posts whenever I make it near a computer, which won't be often, I've decided instead to sign off for the month of May.

I'll see you all the first week of June. Sooner, if I can. Take care of the blogosphere. I'll miss it, and you.

Cheerio, friends.

P.S. In the meantime, if you're new, these posts help explain why it's been a long year and what it's been like to live in (and survive!) a long-distance marriage: Long Distance introduction and parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Countdown to Leaving Seminary... Top Ten Favorite Memories: 5

6. Final exam weeks.

Final exams are crazy. I've written 80 pages in six days. I've written a 20-page paper and then immediately scrapped it and started over because I knew it wasn't any good. I've had at least one season of final exams where I had very little to do and ended up watching three entire seasons of America's Next Top Model on YouTube so that I could stay awake and keep Daryl company as he slaved away (sigh... I know, I know). I've gone back and forth between studies of Bonhoeffer, Alzheimer's disease, Ephesians, and Brecht in the same 24-hour period. I've somehow (somehow!) managed to stay sane thanks to Jesus, Daryl, and lots of caffeine (in that order).

Finals make for great memories because they are ridiculous. All of us students do the impossible, surprise ourselves, drive ourselves nutty, and sometimes even learn something along the way.

This finals season I had 70+ pages to write in a week. It would have been 70+ pages to write in two weeks, but I had to fly to Nashville for an interview (yay!). My good friend Katie (who had six pages to write - I tried very hard not to hate her for this reason...) came over to work most nights. It was great to have someone around, to take short breaks, to eat bowls of cereal together.

I'll miss the ridiculous things that happen during finals week - things that, if it were not finals week, would make us all seem pathological, neurotic, or just plain bizarre.

I have one friend who wears the same clothes every day until she finishes a paper. It helps her feel like it's just one long day and not days and days of her life she's devoting to the paper.

Daryl chooses a place to work and will work only there for four or five or six days, and then changes abruptly and cannot stand working there anymore. This season it was Panera every day, and now he can't stand to go back and has found a new spot.

When I was a student at Loyola I instituted the "butt-in-the-chair" policy. After managing to procrastinate with everything under the sun (I should match up those pairless socks! I should clean behind the fridge! I should Christmas shop in May!) I sat myself in a chair in front of my computer and would let myself up for only three things: bathroom, 3 daily meals, and bedtime. Of course, I now know that this is how people get blood clots and die. But at the time, it worked wonders for my grades.

Now I do puzzles during finals. Puzzle after puzzle. I'll work for an hour or two, then spend fifteen minutes on a puzzle. It helps my mind to relax while I can still mull over my paper. I probably did ten puzzles during finals week this year. Doing them puts me into that same relaxed state-of-mind that happens in the shower or before sleep. It helps me come up with great ideas and realize which old ones don't work with the argument of my paper. Daryl's dad has a great explanation for the different type of brainwaves that we have and what this type of thought is called, but I don't remember what it is right now... that's what happens after finals!

As a student, finals is like the Olympics. Have you prepared well? Will you choke? Will you fall apart at the seams? How is your equipment? Will your computer die? Will that big jug of Mountain Dew help or hurt? How much sleep does a human being actually need?

When I was in undergrad a friend and I went to this ridiculous all-night diner on the way to Chicago and drank bad smoothies and wrote and wrote and wrote. When I studied at Loyola I wrote papers with Eliot, my new kitten, in a room overlooking Addison Street and Wrigley Field. I ate handfuls of Oreos and Thai takeout. I hardly slept. I read thousands of pages.

Perhaps the best part about final exams is that they end. Then all students go to sleep. The first restful sleep in weeks - nothing is due, nothing is late, nothing else can go wrong. It is done. We sleep and sleep.

The first thing I always do after that sleep is go to the grocery store and take my time choosing each item. I eat terribly during finals, and my brain is so full and strained it almost feels bruised, so it's a joy to focus on something as simple as food. The week after finals I indulge myself. I get the good mozzarella, the pricey-but-amazing orange juice. I read labels and squeeze melons. I meander through the store knowing that, after a grueling week or two and a long semester, I have nothing else to do. I begin the slow stepping-down off of too much caffeine.

I was a little sad to turn in my final final paper this year. For all I know, I'm done being a student. This could be my last paper... ever. I'll miss the craziness of finals, the Herculean effort it takes to get up early and stay up late for days on end while expending crazy amounts of brain energy. I'll miss the accomplishment of finally emailing off a paper, or watching it print. I'll miss the sense of accomplishment. I'll miss the camaraderie that occurs when every student is in the same boat, struggling to stay afloat on a sea of papers and exams. The student life is a good one indeed - even during finals.

 Image borrowed from here.

Thankful

My friend Nish is a great blogger who does a "Thankful on a Thursday" post each week. I'm not great about doing the same type of post every week (see my attempts at Tuesday Recipes and Sunday Poems for examples of that...), but I want to post my thanks this week.

A wonderful, wonderful professor of mine (Dr. Shane Berg - if you're ever a PTS student, take every class you can with him!) is fond of talking about the cycle between thanksgiving and blessing. When we are thankful for others and express that thanks, they are blessed. When we practice gratitude, we are blessed. When we remember our blessings, we become thankful.

I can be a complainer sometimes. Occasionally I have real things to complain about (my cat was dying! my husband is a thousand miles away! the current job market = abysmal!). More often than not my complaining comes from a lack of expressing gratitude and thankfulness in the things I have, both big things and small. It isn't that I am not thankful, it's that it's easier to grouse than to praise, easier to gripe than to thank. I want to change this, expressing the gratitude that is in my heart more regularly. Hence, today's post.

I'm fighting off some significant weariness right now. It has been a long, hard year, and it will take awhile for the core tiredness to fade. I'm a good finisher. I can always finish and finish fairly strong. Once on a drive across the country, Daryl was fading. He's usually the workhorse when we drive; he can drive for hours and hours with nothing but a Mountain Dew and some hard rock on the radio. I can drive for three hours or so, and then I fade. But it was two in the morning in the middle of Nebraska, and he was beat. I got behind the wheel, steeled myself for a long haul, and brought us to the hotel safe and sound in the early hours of the morning. When we pulled up I drove the car under the hotel awning, laid my head on the steering wheel, told Daryl we were there, and promptly fell asleep. This is how I feel at the close of this long, hard, marathon of a year. I'm in. And now I'm exhausted.

This exhaustion, this realization of all I've been through and all that God has brought me through this year makes me even more thankful. I couldn't have done this on my own strength. I've leaned on the Lord. I've leaned on others. I've asked for help when I've needed it, and help has come. And I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for professors who have helped me develop my theology, shared their lives with me, and taught me more than they'll ever know. Thank you, Drs. Berg, Osmer, Brown, Seow, McCormack, Hutton, Duff, Charry, Lee, Lapsley, Appold, Rorem, and Capps. Thank you for teaching me practical theology, ethics, systematics, Greek, Hebrew, church history, homiletics, and the importance of nurturing my personal faith. Thank you for pouring your lives into your students, for laughing with us, for giving us your time and energy, and for working so very hard.

I'm thankful for friends. I won't list because then I'll forget some, but I'm so thankful for friends this year. Friends from seminary, new and old. Friends from home. Family friends.

I'm thankful for family. Family who understands me, supports me, and always welcomes me with open arms, no matter how grumpy, exhausted, or bedraggled I may be.

I'm thankful for two snuggly cats. Some cats don't show affection; mine are snuggly, snuggly cats. They climb on my lap and purr and purr. Not much makes me feel that appreciated.

I'm thankful for the end of this season.

I'm thankful that I'm heading toward a (much-needed!) vacation.

I'm thankful for the abundance of gluten-free foods out there these days. I had pretzels with my lunch. Pretzels! And they were amazing.

I'm thankful for the Princeton Public library. I walked out of there with eight new novels (I'm going on vacation! Woo hoo!) and three books on tape. Daryl and I get to drive across the country listening to Bill Bryson. I always feel like the richest person on earth when I leave a library. I get all of these!? For free!? Are you sure?

When my parents first took me trick-or-treating as a three year old, they told me that if I knocked on a door and said "trick or treat" the person living there would give me candy. I thought they were crazy and wouldn't do it. So my dad picked me up, knocked on that first door, and... I got candy! I looked down into my bucket, my eyes wide, paused for a second or two, then took off sprinting toward the next house. I had discovered the greatest scam on earth! That's how I feel about the library. What a great country we live in! Free candy AND free books! My two favorite things!

I'm thankful for friends' blogs that encourage me and others.

I'm thankful for the weather during final exams. Cool and breezy - perfect in an un-airconditioned apartment during a tough academic time.

I'm thankful for fresh raspberries in the fridge.

I'm thankful for final meetings with Princeton folk--professors, friends, colleagues.

I'm thankful for a successful class at Rider and a great group of students. I'm thankful for the provision of that job, and all I've learned from teaching through the years.

I'm thankful for the incredible generosity of friends who have housed Daryl and a friend who loaned us her car for the year.

I'm thankful for how their generosity has taught me to be more generous with what I have.

I'm thankful for laughter. Laughing with friends, funny movies, funny books, and times where I just have to laugh at myself.

I'm thankful for a God who never leaves, never forsakes, and never abandons. I'm thankful for a God whose promises are new every morning. I'm thankful for a God who has confirmed time and time again that Daryl and I are on the right path this year. I'm thankful for a God who is real and alive.

Mostly I'm just thankful.

What are you thankful for today?

My Life After Finals

Awake after noon.

Wonder why I'm so very tired.

Eat something. Usually GF chocolate chip pancakes. Sometimes fruit. Sometimes eggs.

Consider showering. Watch a little TV instead.

Wonder why I'm so ridiculously tired.

Chronicle a list of things I've done this year in my head (this is Mom's version, as posted on my Facebook): "You successfully juggled several jobs, teaching, traveling out of town on weekends, airline trauma, snowstorm closings, a husband living in another state, all household responsibilities, traveling to presbytery meetings in Chicago, a car with a dead battery twice in one day, a kitty on the brink of death, canceling your only vacation with your husband at Thanksgiving and planned for a year, assistant play directing, a lead role in that play, cooking/eating a special GF diet and these are only the things I can think of. Yes, a long post....but a longer year and I think congratulations are in order. Well done Courtney. And I would like to add, don't ever do it again. Love, mom"

Ah, that's why I'm tired. I love my mom.

Look out the window at the sun in the big oak in our front yard. Pet the cats. 


Pray.


Pray for the Lord to provide a pastoral call for me in Nashville. Pray for rejuvenation of spirit at the end of a long year. Pray for Daryl who is still in the midst of a rough season of finals. Pray for my seminary friends who are also searching, searching, searching for calls and jobs.


Finally shower.


Send some emails.


Grade some student papers.


Miss Daryl.

Drive to Lawrenceville and teach at Rider U. Lecture. Answer questions. Laugh with my students.  


Run errands. 

Have some follow-up meeting with professors. Tear up a little when I say goodbye to those wonderful professors.

Come home.


Miss Daryl.


Remember that I will see Daryl very, very soon. For good. For real.


Remember God's faithfulness in the midst of a crazy season.

Thank God for this faithfulness, for a long year that is drawing to a close, for helping me to learn and grow. For getting me through it all.


Still feel tired, but better.

Countdown to Leaving Seminary... Top Ten Favorite Memories: 4

7. Trips to New York City.

I hate New York City. I really do. It's loud and expensive, and though it's only about an hour away, by the time I get there I'm always tired and nearly ready to go home. That doesn't make me sound very cool, I know. The truth is that I'm not, nor will I ever be, cool. So if you were thinking you were reading a cool person's blog, you should probably go elsewhere. Like to Unhappy Hipsters dot com.

Regardless of my inherent dislike for the city of yellow cabs, I've had some very memorable and hilarious experiences in NYC. For example:

The time my sister Caitlyn and I got stuck on a broken subway and then hopelessly lost, after which we speed-walked through Chinatown at dusk and ended up in a really creepy neighbrorhood. One of the highlights of this visit was the crusty old man we passed on our fast walk who was standing at the doorway of a dimly lit alley "store" with a handpainted sign reading "STUFF." When we hurried past him he started cursing loudly at us for not wanting to check out the merchandise. Eep.

The time I was riding the subway with my parents and telling them about this Mariachi band I encountered on the subway months earlier, and just as I mentioned it the SAME Mariachi band came into our subway car (I recognized the lead dude's crazy mustache). What are the odds?

The time Cait and I ran into Jude Law and she chased him down the sidewalk in her sundress and Chacos while holding a leaky jar of pesto sauce from the farmer's market in a bag she sweet-talked out of a lady who worked at the Body Shop.

 The time I stumbled into the MTV music video awards and got some eye rolls from scantily clad teenage girls when I asked what was going on. See? I told you I wasn't cool.

The time Daryl and I walked with our friend Steven through Central Park right before Steven flew overseas to start his new job in Indonesia. We talked about giving up everything to follow the call of God to seminary or Indonesia. Then I ate a snow cone.

The time I went to NYC with my mom, Daryl, and my sister Caroline and it was so utterly freezing cold that we had to snuggle together at every possible opportunity.

The time my friend Katie talked me into seeing a Broadway show because hey, we're so close to NYC and we're both graduating, and even though neither one of us can really afford it, sometimes you just have to do these things. This last one is happening on Sunday. Yay!


Ah, NYC. I say I don't like you, but clearly I do... at least a little.

Countdown to Leaving Seminary... Top Ten Favorite Memories: 3

8. The Christmas tree.

Our first year of seminary, Daryl and I decided not to decorate for Christmas. It was our first married Christmas, so we didn't have any decorations yet, much less any money to buy any. We were madly writing papers (and this was before Princeton changed its curriculum so that finals were before Christmas!), Daryl was taking an overload of credits, I was teaching two classes, and we were just too busy. Besides, we would be leaving on December 21 to travel home to Wisconsin, where we'd visit my family who would have decorated the house like crazy.

After we had mutually decided this, I was inwardly really sad. We didn't have the money for a tree or decorations, really, and it was the wise decision, but I LOVE Christmas. I listen to Christmas music year-round, I love it so much. Still, I was determined to keep a stiff upper lip and not let on that I was sad. After all, we were on a budget. We really didn't have time. Seminary meant sacrifice, and I could do without ornaments or wreaths for a year or two (or three).

One night, a week or so later, Daryl went out to buy groceries. About half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Odd, since I wasn't expecting anyone. I went to the door and found Daryl, who asked, "Can you help me with this?"

Behind him was an enormous, six-foot tall Christmas tree.

I've hardly ever felt so loved.

Countdown to Leaving Seminary... Top Ten Favorite Memories: 2

9. President Torrance asking me if I'm a professional actor.

To his (great) credit, President Torrance always comes to see the spring play. I'll admit I got a touch more nervous when I saw him sitting there in the top row of the Friday night show.

After the performance he  came up to congratulate the actors, shook my hand, and asked, quite kindly, in his softspoken Scottish way, "Are you a professional, then?"

Ahahaha... No. But thanks for asking - you made my night!

Countdown to Leaving Seminary... Top Ten Favorite Memories: 1

Because I leave seminary in just a few short weeks (!), I've been thinking about my time here, about what I've learned, what I've loved, and what I've experienced. For the next ten days I'm going to post a memory a day from my time at PTS.

In no particular order, we begin...

10. Moving in.
Daryl and his two wonderful, dear friends Steven and Chris loaded up our Penske truck in Wheaton, Illinois, and drove across the country (I had come out early to start work and was already in Princeton living with an air mattress, a cat, and a folding chair. It was cheery). We had NO idea how much work it would be to move, and though we didn’t have much stuff, our truck was filled to the brim with furniture and boxes. It was August in Princeton, and it was at least ninety degrees out. Chris, Daryl, and I went to sleep that night in our empty apartment weary already at the prospect of unloading it all the next morning (Steven had to fly back early).

When we awoke and began to unload, we were met with half a dozen Wheaton alums (and a few spouses) who had heard of our plight and had come to help. Peter, Travis, James, Nicole, and Matt dropped everything to get hot and sweaty carrying our boxes. Our stuff. Peter’s wife Megan was ill and couldn’t come, but sent cookies.

Moving in took only an hour, and when we were done we ate popcicles and talked about the year to come. I couldn’t believe these people—some of whom I had never even met—had given their mornings to us.

Reflections as I Plan to Live (Once Again) With My Husband: Part 4

You probably wouldn't expect that there would be a great deal of joy in spending nine months apart from the person you love most in the world. I certainly didn't.

But God surprises, sometimes.

When I flew home to Princeton after helping Daryl settle in to his new Nashvillian digs, I spent a couple hours crying. Then I spent a few thinking of how badly this was going to stink. Then I watched some television. It didn't help. Then I ate some ice cream. That didn't help either. Then I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning there was nothing left to do but pick myself up out of bed with a sigh and go to work. I tried not to notice the empty bookshelf. I shut the door to Daryl's side of the closet that was now empty. Ordinary life went on, even when the one I loved was a thousand miles away.

The joy in this year has constantly surprised me. It's been deep and incredible. It's been welcome and unexpected. It's been a sure companion, even amidst the pain of separation. A line from Marilynne Robinson's Gilead has stuck with me this year. I've quoted this novel in a previous post, but it is so apt I have to do it again. Her main character, John, is reflecting upon the death of his first wife and the decades between her death and his unexpected marriage to a new love:

"I do not remember grief and loneliness so much as I do peace and comfort--grief, but never without comfort; loneliness, but never without peace. Almost never."

There were times where I felt lonely without peace, but almost never. The missing ached, but there was still life in the living.

So, with joy, I'll end this series of reflections with nine joys I've experienced in the past nine months of living apart--far, far apart--from my dear husband. There were many, many more.

1. Reunions.
These were the best. Whether it'd been only two weeks or nearly a month, running into Daryl's arms in a Nashville or Philly (or Chicago or Denver, once) airport was amazing. We always tried to do our schoolwork ahead of time so that when we were reunited we would have two or three days together to just reconnect. We'd take walks, sleep in on Saturdays, go to church, cook leisurely dinners. After talking on the phone for weeks we were often talked out. We just wanted to be in the same room together, to tease the cats, to laugh, to hug. Each visit reconfirmed that our falling in love had been no accident.

Daryl developed a love for sneaking up behind me in airports and grabbing me in a big bear hug from behind. He's lucky my self-defense training is a little rusty, or he might have gotten an elbow to the stomach before I caught on...

2. Identity.
Prior to getting married in 2007 I understood myself pretty well as a single person. After getting married I learned to understand myself as a married person. Now I feel that I've begun to learn how to bridge these two worlds--to be independent but still part of a unit, to explore my interests but still care for my spouse. In my first couple years of marriage I had stopped doing various things I previously enjoyed (blogging being one of these) for lack of time and because learning to be married took time and energy.

I've recaptured something of myself this year. I've remembered who I am apart from "Courtney-and-Daryl." Now I look forward to remembering who I am within "Courtney-and-Daryl" in the coming months, and bringing the two together. I am both, and I love both.

3. Time.
Before I got married I hated the cliché that single people have "more time." "I'm a busy person!" I would say. "I don't have more time! I have little time! And it's precious time! So stop trying to get me to lead the youth group retreat/Bible study/school project because I'm the single one, okay?"

Well, it's true. Even though I've been working two part-time jobs while going to school this year, I find that I have a lot more time to devote to other things and people when I'm on my own. I've developed some wonderful friendships that I may not have had the opportunity to without these months on my own. I participated in the spring play and volunteered for some night on-call shifts at the hospital in Summit. I've read more, including more of my Bible. I've also watched more television than usual, but that wasn't a joy, it was a coping mechanism...

4. Being alone.
At my friend Bethany's wedding shower a couple of years ago, we were all asked to write down something she would gain and something she would lose when she got married. Her (hilarious) friend Alisha wrote: "You're losing the ability to ever sleep in a bed alone without people worrying about your marriage unless you're sick or in the hospital."

I didn't realize until this year on my own how much I really do enjoy being alone sometimes. During my first year of teaching I would come home plain talked-out. Daryl, who had spent his day working quietly in his cubicle, would be bubbling over with conversation. I simply wanted to eat dinner and not talk. On my own, I do lots of not talking. I've learned to embrace silence. Rather than racing to turn on music or the television when I get home, I love listening to the quiet for a little bit. The click of the cats' nails on the floor, the hum of the refrigerator, the thump-thump of a basketball near the hoops in my backyard. It is not, mostly, good to be alone. But sometimes, some hours of some days, it is.


5. Meeting Jesus in unexpected ways.
Back in mid-February I was sick. Sore throat, stuffy nose sick. No, it wasn't H1N1, but it was pretty miserable. I felt really alone. I had to drag myself to Whole Foods for Kleenex and cough drops and heat up my own chicken broth. When I'm sick I like to be fawned over. "What do you need? Oh... you poor dear." I love that stuff. But alas, I was alone, and Daryl could do little but empathize over the phone.

Enter my friend Brandi. She heard I was sick and knocked on the door with homemade soup and a warm loaf of gluten-free bread. "I heard you were sick," she said. "Is there anything else you need?" There were tears in my eyes as I hugged her goodbye. She had baked me bread.

There have been moments this year when I've been at the end of my rope. Sick, exhausted, or just lonely. And just when I've been at my lowest, Jesus has met me. Sometimes through his words in Scripture or in poetry. Sometimes in the soft fur of one of the cats (both of whom have a knack for knowing when something has made me sad). Often through people. I have been so incredibly blessed by the outpourings of love from friends and family. My sister Caitlyn visited me in September, and my parents have trekked out to Jersey twice (with a third visit just around the corner for graduation). Friends have schlepped me to and from the airport dozens of times without complaint. Friends have taken care of my cats when I've been away to see Daryl. Just tonight my friend Katie came over to study and brought strawberry-mango smoothie ingredients and a hug. "I read your blog," she said. "You said you needed hugs. So here is one." A few weeks ago my friend Inga made a trip down to see me for less than 24 hours when she returned from Iraq, just so we could have dinner together.

This is my Inga. She rocks.

6. This Tremendous Accomplishment.
I ran the Chicago marathon in 2002. To this day I'm not quite sure why I did it. I'm not really a runner or an adrenaline junkie, and I never did experience anything amounting to a "runner's high" (though I got plenty of "runner's side-stitch" and "runner's leg cramps"). I think the reason I did it was so that other things would seem easier. I would always have it to go back to for reassurance. "Of course I can write this paper! I ran a marathon!" "Certainly I can get through graduate school! I ran a marathon!" At the age of twenty, it helped me define myself as a strong person, someone able to persevere even when things were tough.

This is already how I think of this year in our marriage. If we did this, surely we can do anything. The same skills that helped us through a year of long-distance marriage--relying on the Lord, communicating well, making each other a priority--I hope will translate into the rest of our married life. And when we hit rough patches (as even the best marriages do), we will have this to hold onto and remember.

7. Moving on.
There is great joy in taking a new step. In a month I will be graduating. In a week my final papers will (Lord willing) be just a memory. Watching Daryl start his new PhD program and love it, moving toward my own graduation, and planning our new life in Nashville has been a joy. In many ways this is the first place we've chosen to live together, our first real grown-up place. When we were first married we lived in Chicago because that's where we had gone to school and that's where we had found our first jobs. After that we moved to Jersey because Princeton was the only seminary we wanted to attend.

Moving to Tennessee has been our first real grown-up "us" choice. We had the choice to stay in Jersey or, possibly, move to Chicago. We had the choice to say no to a PhD and move anywhere in the world.  So we prayed--together and separately. We sought the Lord's heart and our own. And with a bit of trepidation (we've never been southerners! we don't know anyone in Tennessee!), we chose Nashville and Vanderbilt. It was exciting to make the decision together, and it's been exciting to begin seeing it through. An adventure. Together.

8. Surprises
One of the things you lose after marriage is the ability to easily surprise the one you love. When you're living together and sharing a bank account, you have to be very crafty to create a surprise. Last year, a few weeks before Daryl's birthday, I told him not to check our bank statements. He does this pretty religiously to check our budget and guard against identity theft. Anyway, he remembered not to check it for about three days. Then he checked it. He came to me sheepishly, admitting that he now knew I'd been to Kenneth Cole... Grrr...

I love surprises. Love them, love them, love them. And it's been easier to create them (and to receive them!) being so far away. Just last weekend Daryl surprised me by taking me to the gluten-free bakery in Nashville. I still don't know Nashville very well, so by the time I realized we were on the other end of town--not headed home, as he had told me we were--we were practically at the bakery.

For Christmas I was able to plan a visit to a Laker's game in April. I was on the phone with my dad four or five times asking him questions about tickets (where should we sit? how far away was too far? is mid-court better than end-court?) while sitting in the living room - something I certainly could not have done with Daryl hanging around. 

Sometimes we surprise each other with love notes in the mail. Corny, I know, but I love those notes (ha! pun!) and have saved every single one.

9. The Pain of this Year.
How is pain a joy, you may ask? For this simple reason: it hurt to be away from Daryl. Sometimes to the point where it felt like actual physical pain. And each time it hurt, each time I hung up the phone with him and fell asleep alone, I was reminded of how blessed I am to have him. The missing has been painful, but it's been infinitely sweet as well. We have each other to miss. We've been faithful to one another in the missing. And with each painful day we came a day closer to being done.

I haven't had a baby yet, but people have told me that the only things that help you through the pain are knowing that the pain has an end, and knowing that you get a baby when you're done. There is no way around it - you must go through. And there is tremendous joy and accomplishment in getting through. You've done it. It's over. And now you can go home with your dear little one.

That's where I am today. We've nearly done it. It's nearly over. And in seventeen days, I can go home with my dear one. Seventeen days. Hallelujah.

Reflections as I Plan to Live (Once Again) With My Husband: Part 2

This is my little tribute to the past nine months: the craziness, reflections, difficulties, and joys of the past months my husband and I have spent apart. Installment #2 is dedicated to reflections - what I've learned about myself, my husband, and my marriage after nine months of living far, far apart.

1. I really love my husband.
Living apart has taught me how much Daryl and I just "get" each other. Of all the people in the world, he's the one who knows me best, understands me best, and often knows what I'm feeling before I even speak. I love him, and when he's gone, part of me feels like it's gone, too.

2. No, I really love him.
Seriously.

3. I married a good man.
 We've both been insanely busy this year, Daryl with his first year of PhD studies and traveling to conferences, me finishing my MDiv while working a couple of part-time jobs and participating in a spring play. Yet every few days Daryl will pause to remind me that I am his priority and that he'd drop everything for me in an instant. In November when Eliot got so sick, he proved it.

Daryl has great ambitions and great skill. He is working incredibly hard in his program. Yet I know that, above all, Jesus is his first priority. After that, I am. Even with the prestige of his program, the responsibilities he has taken on, and the name he is building for himself in academia, his priorities are in line. He goes to church every Sunday. He carves out an hour or so to talk to me every day. He sends me sweet emails and notes to remind me that he loves me. He Skypes with his mom and keeps in touch with his dad and brother. He runs tech support for my family when their Macs break down. He occasionally drops everything to help me edit a paper or a job application.

I married a good man, and this year has only reconfirmed how lucky I am.

4. I'm stronger than I thought.
During the past couple of weeks I've done a couple of things without batting an eye that I never, ever did while we were married. I picked up a giant, dead cockroach (I know, right? My apartment building is fifty-ish years old and in quite a state of disrepair...) and threw it away. I cleaned kitty poo off of the rug in the bathroom. I cleaned out a scary, scary tupperware full of month-old soup in the fridge. I scheduled a doctor and a dentist appointment without Daryl reminding me. Little things, I know, but I did them without even thinking. Without balking or hesitating. I just did them, because they needed doing. I'm much more ready to have kids than I was months ago. Living alone has helped me to grow up a bit.

5. I'm weaker than I knew.
Some days I cannot pry myself out of bed with a crowbar. Daryl is good at getting me up on those days. He'll kiss me on the forehead, then talk to me, then shake me a little (if I really, really need it). His last resort is usually, "Well, I'm getting in the shower and you're going to be late..." That usually does it. When it's just me in a comfy, warm bed with two snuggly cats I can easily talk myself out of whatever I had planned for the morning. Early reading? Why? Getting ahead on school? But I can snuggle into my blankets for another hour! Some days I need an extra hand, and without it, I really struggle.

6. Touching is good.
When Daryl and I were first dating we hit a rough patch. We fought about a lot of little things as we worked to deepen our relationship, and I wasn't always sure how to love him in the midst of these arguments. Once, after arguing back and forth for awhile, I put a hand gently on his arm. Then I quickly removed it and apologized. "Sorry," I said. "Is it okay to touch you when we're fighting? Does it bother you?"

"Not at all," he responded. "Touching is good." This became a theme of our relationship. Not that we were overly touchy (we both subscribed to the abstinence-before-marriage program wholeheartedly), but we were free with our affection - an arm around the shoulder, a squeeze of the hand, a hug, a kiss.

The reassuring and healing power of touch is quite an incredible thing. I've read news pieces on third-world orphanages where babies actually die from lack of touch. A close friend of mine recently confided that she's frustrated with being single because no one ever touches her. In our society you touch family and significant others - all other touch is limited to a handshake or perhaps, rarely, a hug from someone of the same sex. Touching has become taboo outside of romantic relationships, driving people toward relationships they may not want or be ready for simply because they are aching to be touched or hugged.

In many other countries, this isn't the case. In much of Spain, friends of the same sex will walk around holding hands or with their arms around one another. In France it's common to get kissed on both cheeks when you're greeted. In Italy hugs come with handshakes. In America we tend to keep to ourselves and touch only our family. During a time where most of us live hundreds (if not thousands) of miles from our families, there is not much human contact.

A professor of mine lost her husband years ago. I sat in front of her at a lecture where the speaker mentioned how rare it is to experience any human contact if you live alone, "particularly if you have lost a spouse." I could hear the professor sigh heavily behind me. This rang true for her. But because of my student status, what could I do? I couldn't offer her a hug; I was her student, she my teacher. But my heart ached for her.

I've found this lack of human contact to be very true this year. By the time it's been two or three weeks apart from Daryl I am positively aching for a hug. Sometimes I go the entire two or three weeks without touching another human being. Sometimes the only human contact I have is handing a paper back to a student, accidentally bumping into someone at the seminary post office, or shaking the hand of a colleague. I realize that I'm lucky - this season will end for me soon. But what about those who go weeks and months between family visits and don't experience any human touch?

Touching is not only good, it's necessary. I don't know the solution - how to encourage more (appropriate) touch in our hyper-sexualized society. But it's worth considering.

7. I'm not doing this again.
I'm glad we did it. We were following the Lord's call and (as Scripture clearly shows), ignoring that is only done at our own peril. But barring another act of God, we are done living apart. Done. Fin. Fo' real.

8. I'm more adventurous when I'm alone.
Marriage has made me a little bit more safe. I take fewer risks when I'm happy and comfortable. This year, on my own, I've rediscovered a more adventurous side of myself. I dress more fashionably, I go out more, I hang out with people more. I'm home less often because there are more fun things to do out in the world than in my little apartment. I've also had time to make some incredible new friends - friends who have made this year not only bearable but full of joy, laughter, insightful conversations, and great fun.

I also got to be in a rockin' play. :)

9. Dietrich Bonhoeffer nailed this idea of what it feels like to be separated, and what we, as Christians, must do to survive it.

For my Ethics and Dietrich Bonhoeffer course I'm currently reading Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers in Prison. I'm about halfway through it, and on the plane to visit Daryl in Nashville this weekend, I came across this passage. It was so akin to my own experience this year it was almost eerie...

Bonhoeffer was writing to his good friends Renate Wind and Eberhard Bethge. They were newly married and facing a time of separation as Bethge was sent abroad. At this point Bonhoeffer had been in prison for many months, separated from his fiancé, Maria.

"I should like to say something to help you in the time of separation that lies ahead. There is no need to say how hard any such separation is for us; but as I've now been separated for nine months from all the people that I'm devoted to, I should like to pass on to you something of what I have learnt...

"First: nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it rem,ains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he doesn't fill it, but on the contrary, he keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.

"Secondly: the dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves. We must take care not to wallow in our memories or hand ourselves over to them, just as we do not gaze all the time at a valuable present, but only at special times, and apart from these keep it simply as a hidden treasure that is ours for certain. In this way the past gives us lasting joy and strength.

"Thirdly: times of separation are not a total loss or unprofitable for our companionship, or at any rate they need not be so. In spite of all the difficulties that they bring, they can be the means of strengthening fellowship quite remarkably.

"Fourthly: I've learnt here especially that the facts can always be mastered, and that difficulties are magnified out of all proportion simply by fear and anxiety. From the moment we wake until we fall asleep we must commend other people wholly and unreservedly to God and leave them in his hands, and transform our anxiety for them into prayers on their behalf." -Letters and Papers from Prison, 176-7.

Amen, brother. Amen.