The sun was out for the majority of the last four days.
I am solar powered.
Therefore it follows that I am budding with optimism that has been absent since...whenever the dark era started. Probably October or November. I am not quite sure since it seems like years since I last saw the sun, but even I am able to admit that this is a distortive trick of time.

Optimism manifests itself these days in the following faces: I have chosen and re-chosen approximately 6 careers for myself to enter ...in the last week and a half. Somehow this weekend I managed to make hummus, banana bread-huckleberry-chocolate chip muffins, chia seed pudding, and all of the normal meals. I planted bulbs in the freshly weeded garden...even though the last day of frost in supposed to be April 26th. AND I did the laundry.

I sorely need a practical outlet for my new found optimism. What I mean is, I need encouragement. But not just any encouragement. I do not know if you can tell, but I am splitting at the seams as one thought takes me one direction and a dozen others also vie for the right to captain my poor vessel. I am a ship sailing in circles. I need encouragement like I need the kindness of the trade winds. Something strong and gentle but wise enough to take me out of these circles.

Sometimes I wish that I would be happy working for money. Money is a simple goal with a clear path. But I want a job that allows me to collaborate with a small team for a cause that I care about in a manner that is healthy...and pays the bills for a modest lifestyle. I will learn any skill, trade, art, or craft in order to pursue such a career and lifestyle. If only I knew what I was looking for!

I spent months waiting for someone to tell me what should be done next while I was unemployed. I realized that I was waiting for a prophet even though God had told me what I needed to know. I knew he was not sending a prophet and still I looked anxiously hoping that someone had conversed with God about me and would be willing to drop some heavenly gossip my way. Now, I am learning in this new job what it is that I hope to find (but have not yet) in a job, in a day, and in my life.

I find it hard to expect God to act on my behalf because I have already seen how so many people never find the blessing that I, in my optimism, am asking for. My singular encouragement remains the idea of asking like a child. Children ask their parents for every thing that enters their minds as good. (Just take your child or your friend and their children to the grocery store.) They know (or imagine) their parents to be capable and obligated to meet their needs. Somehow, God's goodness binds him to answering when I come to him with my needs. He is the only one who can meet this need. He is good. He has to come through. And so my optimism lives. And even as I hope, I sail in circles waiting for the right wind to indicate the course.

If you have any encouragement, send it my way. And if, for some reason, you know what it is that I should be doing, please send that too. I have tried to go any direction you can imagine. I have renounced aviation at least 8 times in the last two weeks and I have sworn to better it ...probably half as many. I have decided to go back to school for a dozen subjects and then found a flaw in each of them. Yet, I have discarded no thought outright--only tucked them into the bottomless sack of options that I hope to empty considerably someday soon. Circles within and circles without.