Waiting.

I have been anxiously anticipating the move to DC.  The past two weeks my anxiety level ticked up a few notches as Charlie and I began our apartment search in earnest.

My friend, Hannah, best captured how the apartment hunt in DC makes you feel when she posted this picture on her own blog:

So over the past few days, I’ve been forced into a reflection on the worth of waiting.  That which started as thinking about waiting as it relates to finding the right apartment in an incredibly-crazed city (realty-wise, at minimum) manifested itself into something much deeper.

I realized the hardest part of the past two/three years has been in the waiting.  I’ve had to watch the brilliant mind of my ebullient, sharp and driven mother slowly deteriorate. 

And I’ve had to wait...  

...on the end of phone lines

...at the end of confusing accounts of medical appointments

...in the awkward pauses that come at the end of conversations trying to explain to others

...in the awkward pauses that come at the end of my thoughts when I ask if I’m just making things up

Waiting has been the worst part.

I am a planner; a list-maker; a strategist.  Much of this I actually inherited from my mother. 24-hour notice was king in my household growing up.  The only way mom could juggle working, taking care of a teen and toddler and all the other things life threw at her, was through marking down everything on the calendar.  She was the watermark as planner, list-maker, strategist, and balancer.

So, as I watch things fade away, I want to go – to do – to plan.  Not just in the short term, but to prepare for how the specter of whatever is behind the memory loss will impact the longer term.  I want to tackle what’s happening like I have the apartment search.  (Game plan: live on Craigslist -> email first -> be friendly-aggressive -> go prepared (I MADE A TENANT-RESUME) -> win.) 

But that’s not how sorting out, diagnosing and addressing memory loss works.

So far, what it’s meant is waiting between the spaces of doctors’ appointments, fears, forgetfulness and questions.

I’m still loitering in those spaces, but the apartment search has helped me to refocus, and to remember to lean into this:

{Oh!  Heyyyy there, waiting!}

 Let all that I am wait quietly before God,

 for my hope is in him.
 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress where I will not be shaken.
 My victory and honor come from God alone.
    He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.
 O my people, trust in him at all times.
    Pour out your heart to him,
    for God is our refuge.

Psalm 62:5-8 nlt 

Caffeinate the blues away...

Burundian coffee makes recent goodbyes bearable.

My friend, Kevin, offered me his extra cup of this liquid-magic.

Little does he know how much it's helped ease the blow of returning to a 9to5 Monday - and of leaving these ones, their owners, and the fabulous city where they reside.

Nature v. Nurture

Lately I've been thinking about nature versus nurture -- and I mean really thinking.  I even made a Venn Diagram:

{i kid you not}

However, I'm not so great with the self-perception and remembering things.  So I had a super-interesting exchange with Charlie after I asked him about what traits he thought I inherited from the familia.  Via his input and my limited self-assessment, I think nature can get props for my mom's more olive/Greek features, including a big nose and bushy eyebrows.  Also, I can probably thank the gene pool for the extragangly-middle ( extended into high school) phase, which left me irreparably uncoordinated.

Nurture gave-to-me more things like my type A-ness and the development of a deep love for James Taylor (and folk music in general).  I also developed a guilty pleasure/ironic-but-NOT-really-ironic appreciation for the show, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

{Sully, serving up a bit o' Nat'l Parks with a side of mountain-man sexual tension}

And speaking of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman - remember that time when Sully single-handedly lobbied/helped establish the National Park System? ('Oh, the reeesearch that went into the show!' my mom would proclaim at the end of each episode.)

Annnd here's where things come full-circle!  While I was hiking in Yosemite National Park (Thanks for that, Byron!) this past weekend, I began to reflect on how I spend way too much time licking familial wounds.  I bemoan the current obstacles that my parents, brother and I face and feel bitter that my family unit isn't more 'normal'/'healthy'/'balanced'.

But in actuality, contrary to my recent maudlin outlook, I had a hella' good dose of nurturing growing up.

{YNP - the other one}

Case and point: my love for hiking and camping.

Of my favorite things, I really love napping and indolence.  And I hate mosquitos and blisters.

Thus, if my parents didn't cart me to at least half of the National Parks for family vacations growing up, I'm about 99.72% sure I wouldn't have developed a deep affection for hiking, camping and experiencing nature in the way my parents taught me.

So, I'm grateful- for my kick ass mom and dad, who instilled some fantastic preferences and interests within me, right alongside just enough dysfunction to keep things interesting at Thanksgiving.

It happens.

{terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mood = me today}

Day in, day out...

In the words of David Foster Wallace, adulthood can really suck.

Okay, he said it more eloquently, accounting for complexities and such.  I.e.:

There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration. ...

Today, going along with the vein of the wretchedness of routine, I'm led to sulk over how my dear friend Kacey is getting married on a beautiful, sunny Carribean island - and thanks to a collusion of adulthood things (work obligations, limited vacation time, logistics) I can't be there.

And it megasucks.

However, to find the silver lining, I'm trying to reflect on how, in the thick of the day in, day out - the timecards, grocery trips, light rail back and forth and forth and back  --> we cross through some mystic, veiled periphery - from adolescence to adulthood.

All of a sudden, in the midst of calls with insurance companies (that our parents no longer make for us), paying rent and student loans, mowing lawns and taking out the trash -- we begin to strive for more.

We try to make ourselves better
              - through lifelong commitments to one another
                     -bringing new life into the world
                           -coming together when unfair loss arises
                              -carrying one another through sickness and suffering
banding together to honor our brokenness and our triumphs.

In spite of my nobler yearnings, I'll keep it real.  My despondence lingers.  I'm bummed I can't be with Kacey and Joe today.

But! I am immensely grateful for the privilege of calling them friends, even when it's from far away.

And I guess... I'm grateful for the doldrums - for being stuck at my desk even on days like today - if it means that I can hone maturity, develop a sense of responsibility, enter new phases, discover greater challenges and resulting fulfillment, establish deeper commitments and explore new horizons.

So, this is for the doldrums:

And since I'm on a Neruda kick, this is for my cherished friends, Kacey and Joe.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. 

Pablo Neruda