Monday

It's mid-morning Monday (such lovely alliteration there) and it has been days since I've paused in this space to record anything but a nightly Daily 5 list.

For the first time in what seems a very long time, years really, I find myself realizing that I don't need to weigh what I say in this space for fear of some in my "real life" who may be reading.  And yet, I almost feel as if I've lost the ability to share myself here.  As if it has descended into a sort of murky silence.

I'm waiting out some health stuff right now.  Waiting for my body to adapt to new changes in supplements and medications.  Waiting to see if initial side-effects will diminish.  Waiting for restful sleep of some sort (since sleep has never been one of my great skills) to return.

I'm thinking about changes.

About needing to find work for the summer.  And how my tired body and soul would instead prefer to hop on a plane to almost anywhere, preferably somewhere near a very large body water, somewhere with sunshine and warmth, and spend a summer resting and reorienting to all of the changes that have come in the last years.

I think of an option in the back of my mind - an option for travel to a new continent that vaguely exists - and I'm tempted to jump at it.  And yet, I know that it would not actually be an option that would fit me well.  That would fit my heart and life.  But as an option, as an escape, it is tantalizing at times, and I dream again of travel and new places.  Of people and prayer and time away for reorienting and reconstructing. 

But it would need to be time away that would not leave me drained, the way so many of the trips, long and short, that I've made over the last few years have done.  Time away that would restore, and contribute to healing.  And that limits my options more significantly.  In the meantime, if the weather brightens this week, watching these words flow across the screen convinces me that time at the zoo and perhaps in a park are going to be necessary.

This is again a season of in-between.  It's the place I've been existing for much of the last year.  The season of waiting and wondering.  I need to find work, but I don't know for how long I need to be employed.  I'm waiting to hear if I will be accepted into the nursing program for September.  If I'm honest, I'm growing tired of waiting.  I'm ready for settled.  I'm growing tired of juggling a longing for things, with a desire to protect my heart from the hurt that comes from wanting deeply and having those desires fail to be fulfilled.

And so I wait.  And this week that will look like time spent applying for jobs, and time spent reading.  I hope it will look like time spent sitting in the sun, at the zoo or in a park.  Perhaps time spent writing.  Most definitely time spent thinking and praying.  There will probably be a bit of cleaning and cooking or baking thrown in, and a few yoga classes.  And yes, likely some daydreaming about airplanes and big bodies of water.  (Watching the finale of The Amazing Race last night would have been comical if you were inside my head.  Mixed into all the dialogue around the room about the various competitors was a nearly obsessive noticing of palm trees in the location in which they wrapped up the season.  Even in a wild wind storm, those palm trees look enticing.  Oh, and if you'd been in my head you would have also been privy to an astonishing number of thoughts about the woman who was providing the final clue, and the stunning ability of her hairdo to remain immobile despite the windstorm!)

And with that, I'd better stop writing and kick off my week of activities of waiting!  See you tonight for the daily 5.