Time will do the talking.

Not only is the title of this blog my favorite Patty Griffin song, but I've also been thinking about time a lot lately. Time is a strange thing. Have you ever looked at your phone or seen a clock and you have this moment of complete panic, you were suppossed to be somewhere and the numbers on a machine told you that you were late. Or the other way around you panic, what time is it??? You see a clock and there is a wash of relief, oh you still have 20 minutes. You depend on a clock to get you up in the morning, you watch the clock all day long at work, waiting for the moment you get to punch out for the day and head home. You watch the clock all night long, being sure to get to bed on time, stressed that time seems to fly at night while it seems to tick by at work... we meet each other at certain times. We have a specific time of day we were born and we will have a specific time of day when we will die. We really do have an obsession with time and clocks. I almost always can tell you what time it is give or take maybe 15 minutes. That's amazing. I eat when the clock tells me to, I go to bed when the clock tells me to. I so wish that I could throw away all my clocks, or at least unplug them for a week and see how different my life is. However, I feel it would be detrimental to my job and to my social life, but what freedom there would be! When you get tired at night, you go to bed. When you wake up in the morning, because your body says it's had enough sleep, you get up. You eat when your body tells you it's hungry. It's like the life of a child, they never know what time it is, nor do they care. Until they get to the age when they know mommy is coming to pick them up at 6:30, then they'll ask every 5 minutes what time it is. I measure my life in minutes, seconds and hours and I wish I could go back to the days, both in my childhood and in Africa, when I would go hours without looking at a clock or knowing what time it is. Have you ever gone a day when you don't know? It will drive me crazy for a little while... like when I'm camping and then eventually... it just doesn't matter. I realize all these wanderings of thoughts have no real relevance on everyday life, we all need time, watches and clocks so we can be responsible adults. But sometimes I just like to imagine life without all the numbers telling me what to do all the time...

Heaven. (literally) Can't wait.

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You move on.

"You love. You learn. You move on. And it's a good thing."



When I read, I constantly find good quotes that describe my life and emotions better then I can. I often underline them if I own them, or copy the quote down in my phone or little book in my purse so as not to forget. My most recent good quote from a book is: "God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December." Perhaps I shall blog about that next... So when I read I am constantly finding little nuggets of truth and wisdom and beauty. When I watch movies, it's only the occasional line that I'll remember... and this is one of them. "You love. You learn. You move on. And it's a good thing." I really do believe that I have loved 3 times in my life. These men, had they asked me to marry them, I would have said yes and probably spent the rest of my life loving them and a lot of the time choosing to rather then feeling it. None of them were the right man for me, and yet when the relationship ended, it felt very wrong. It felt wrong to have loved and then stopped loving. I was frustrated that I was supposed to pick up the pieces of my broken heart, scotch tape them back together, learn my lesson... and move on. Had I known that it was okay and even good to go through something like this (3 times!), my response may have been different. But to me, it just felt very wrong and never occured to me that it was okay. It's interesting to process something like that years later... to allow a little bit more healing of the scars left from these three wonderful very wrong for me men. To look back and know that the pain and heartache was not just senseless... that's important. That's huge. That is my lesson this evening from this line from the movie that turned out to have a profound affect on my heart.

I have loved. I have learned. I moved on. And it's a good thing.

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Think BIG

I just finished this book by one of my new favorite authors Kristin Hannah called A Distant Shore (actually it was the third in a succession of Kristin Hannah novels I've been diving my nose into lately). The book was about a 45 year old woman who had gotten married young, had two children and somewhere in the midst of it all lost her ambition, indepedence and creativity. She used to love to paint and when her children were gone to college, she realized she had lost her ability to dream, to wonder, to create. I love the book because it doesn't just spend a chapter on it, the tension and conflict, she takes a painting class, and BAM her life is different. That's what movies do... but this author spent almost the entire novel as the character struggled back and forth on what that looks like to remember who she used to be before life stole her creativity, she tries and fails, and tries again. She comes to the conclusion that she allowed it to happen, she didn't fight for it. I think of my cousin, Ali who lives in South Africa and lives this huge version of her life and dream and she is the constant standard for me to live up to. She is the inspiration that drives me to write when it takes a little while to sluff off the daily details of life that seem important but when you step back, and look they are not at all. She is the one that calls to me to walk around my neighborhood, to head to the coffee shop on Saturday morning rather then sleeping in so I can sit and enjoy the sunshine on my back and the lazy energy of a coffee shop on an early Saturday morning. She is the one that inspires me to create, to write, to draw, to paint, to make things beautiful because the world needs it. Her existence halfway across the world, her passion and consistency to live and to create and live out her values... I keep coming back to the word inspire which sounds cheesy and Hallmarky but I've got nothing else. All that to say, I am determined at 27 to not find myself 20 years down the road angry that while I was doing the daily things in life, I forgot and lost the creativity and indepedent spirit that I am. My parents got me a book for dreamers to decide where they want to be in 5 years. And a few months ago, I had decided to make a list of 30 things I want to do before I'm 30. Not so I have a to do list, but to serve as reminders to not get caught up in grocery shopping, working, paying bills, and washing the dishes that I forget to buy flowers, to read, to go for a walk, to write and to do those things that are really LIVING. :) In the 5 years book I wrote this a few months ago in response to the question "What would you do if you knew you would not fail?"

"If I knew I would succeed, I would write a book. Not fiction, but something real and beautiful; sharing about life lessons, using my life - challenging others to think about things and change their life and understand God. I want to write to create something, to impact people, to be used by God in a forum of readers. I want to fulfill this part of me - this desire to write, to write something and complete it - and then share it. I want it to be unorthodox, and totally me and God-glorifying. I want it to be relatable, but spiritual, deep but readable. If I could succeed at anything I'd write a book."

I want to just "publish" this publicly to the 2 people that read my blog... so that it's just there. I don't know if I ever will write or try to get published, but it seems like a big step to even just write it.

I am in constant need of a reminder to Live fully and to Think Big. I'm at Wash Perk right now, my FAVORITE coffee shop in all of Denver and there is this little "treasure box" near the register, filled with what looks like little pogs (if you are a child of the 80's you'll know what I'm talking about) with quotes on them. This is a very secular, very liberal coffee shop, but it's full of free non-judgemental people which I love. So you never know what you're going to get when you pull out one of these little nuggets of wisdom. This morning I got "I live fully and completely throughout my day". I think I'll keep it somewhere where I'll see it regularly and will be reminded to live fully, it seems to be a consistent theme of my life lately.

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