New Identity

Bonnie has one, while I am still looking for mine.

I was sad to give up the “Happy” Mississippi plates.

Yet she deserved to be a Texan again at some point in her life.

In other news, I am studying.  All of the time.

And the weather is amazingly gorgeous.

Those two things are almost incongruous.

The house is against us . . . a tale of woe

The other day, after yet another instance of thwarted domestic endeavors, SJ said “The house must be against us.” And I believe it’s true. From curtain rods that fall in the night to sofas that won’t fit in Bonnie the SUV, from shades that will NOT be hung to plates that suddenly won’t fit in the cabinets (could they really have shifted overnight??)—it’s been an adventure. I have been intending to hang room-darkening shades in my bedroom for weeks. I’m on the streets-facing corner of the house and have four lovely windows, so it’s bright enough at night that I could probably read a large-print Reader’s Digest. This won’t do, especially when I start working some night shifts and need to convince my body that it’s normal to be sleeping at noon. So, finally, I made it to Lowe’s last week, bought shades, and had them cut to the size of the windows. I started the installation process one day this week, but have been efficiently halted several times. (And the instructions say it only takes 5 minutes to hang each shade. Multiplied by 50.) First I had to take down all of the existing blinds, which only became a problem when I realized some of the screws were stripped. Then I had to hammer, at strange angles, more holes into the window panes (don’t tell the landlady!). Halfway through this, I realized I would NEVER be able to get the nails out because of the angle, and I do intend to re-hang the blinds when my sojourn in this house ends. So, I made another trip out, to the hardware store this time. But they were closed, because by then it was Labor Day. So I haphazardly re-thumb-tacked curtains, blankets, and pillowcases over the windows. Yesterday I made it back to ACE (I think they know me now. Hopefully they think I’m mildly capable of telling the difference between a nail and a screw). Re-supplied and very determined, I drilled, hammered, measured, tugged, rolled, and stretched my way to hanging two more shades. Which means I’m down to one shade. But, alas! There is one deceptive window in my room, which is about a ½ inch narrower than the rest. Of course I didn’t measure all four since they looked alike!
So tomorrow, I’ll drive back to Lowes. I will win!

shrinking and climbing

Written too late last night:

My house is dimly lit, filled with the quiet melody of Natalie Merchant’s “Break Your Heart”:

I know that it will hurt/I know that it will break your heart
The way things are/And the way they've been

It’s been a wonderfully cloudy, windy day that seemed to usher in the crispness of fall. I’ve needed a melancholy weather day for awhile, but when today came I just wanted to revel in the coolness. So I went running instead of making hot chocolate☺

I live in Dallas now. I’m in grad school. I (finally) got a job.
And those three things have been enough to send me through another tailspin transition, another season of struggling to adjust to new places and things, to find joy in what I have now and not wish for what was the past.
I am really glad to be here, and I’m glad to know I can unpack and be for awhile. I like where we live—SJ and I reside in a character-rich apartment that is part of a 1930s historic home in the middle of a diverse community. We are minutes from the bus stop, the grocery, the pharmacy, the PO, and our work/school locations. I love the heartbeat of the city, and I’m glad to be in the center of a city.

But, alas, I’m not heart-settled yet. I’m not sure, though, that I ever will be again. I’m not sure I should be, but I still want it. I feel weak and overwhelmed and incapable of facing the small mountains ahead of me: surviving (and thriving? Is it possible?) grad school, beginning a challenging new job, seeking out and investing in a new community and new needs.

I started reading Helen Roseveare’s He Gave Us A Valley months ago. She was a physician who spent many years working in Zaire. I put the book down a long while back because Africa was too fresh on my mind and the pain and horror in the book was too real and unbearable. I recently picked it back up and finished it just this week. And the end—it alternately thrills and sobers me. This woman experienced suffering in ways I have not (and I shrink from)—and yet, yet she could say that her 20 years of hard, painful work was worth it. It’s astounding.
I feel small and foolish for cowering in the face of the tasks I’m called to in this season of life. But, somehow, this is for me the mountain to climb. And if I learn to climb not for myself, in the end it will be worth it.

They had called Him ‘a worm, no man’. I said I wanted to be identified with Him, yet did I really want to be a worm, trodden on, spurned, ignored? No!
Yet this was the privilege He offered . . .”
H. Roseveare.