This summer has felt like a lifetime. I have grown old, turned a corner, and grown young again--only to repeat the process. It feels like being sifted. Shaken and shaken until things sit in their best places. It's been uncomfortable but full of purpose. I have felt so many things. Too often there were too many things to feel and I couldn't choose or focus so I just had to let the anger, sadness, happiness, relief, and whatever else rock my insides until wariness saved me from continuing on like that. It was a season with many seasons packed in, leaking from the corners, and yet giving meaning to and resolution to so much from the past.

I am trying to find my path.

I walk trying my best to place one foot down in a safe and solid place and then another. There is no path yet. But I walk because the future is out there somewhere, forward. My family comes into view, tells me who they thought I was and what they expect from me; but they don't agree with each other and I know that I can't please them all. Moreover, I sacrificed my whole childhood trying to keep what little happiness we all had safe. But it didn't matter because they all in their own way chose to forget and alter the memories of the past. The conflicts that could have made us stronger now keep us apart. We've joked that I am the memory keeper, but never before has that made me feel so alone and left me with such a sense of despair. The path is forward though and I am trying to remember that the past is over. Whatever tools or memories we have left behind, we can only carry the strength that surviving the past gives us forward.

My coworkers come into view next. This is the longest I have worked anywhere and these are the people who see my exhaustion, impatience, and my struggle with the daily routine. I give them more than I realize and am surprised when they respond by giving also of themselves. This is the greatest diversity of people I interact with. So many of them are "not like me". I am not like most of them. We are not like each other. And yet we argue and resolve and do the work it takes to keep moving forward even though this job has always been nothing more than an emergency raft which I would abandon the second I saw the shore. I am only here because the vessel I was sailing shipwrecked and the storm hasn't abated in years. Some days I am so angry I could cry. Today, I am grateful I didn't drown in the sea and so confusedly thankful for the opportunity to struggle to build a community among a group of people with tremendously little in common besides our time.

And then my faith group. It's become more and more difficult to find the vocabulary to describe my spiritual and religious views. I feel like the words I used to rely on have changed meaning in this political climate in at least the same severity as I've changed. I still believe in Jesus, in his sacrifice, love and justice, but I don't meet very many people asking the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. My living situation last year really damaged my faith in the community of believers at a time when I was already wrestling with so much. I've never felt so judged or unworthy in my life except perhaps in dealing with my family on issues of forgiveness, mental health, and gender roles. The only reason I am still a person of faith is a promise not to let go until I have been made certain that God himself has let go of me--regardless of what the body of believers does, how it succeeds or fails.

It's been a season of emotions. Of letting go of people you love and respect so that they can do whatever it is that they need to. Of being loosely anchored by tremendous friends who happen to live too far away, but who resonate with the part of me that I am desperately trying to encourage to hold on and grow, the part of me that believes in... anything. Because hope and faith and love are hard to find but so necessary if you are ever to learn who you are and what you can contribute to this world. I am so grateful for my "loose anchors", M & T; so thankful that they can handle my rage and hurt with equal grace and help me find my way home. I think I'm getting close.

I've stopped to catch my breath and appreciate that suddenly the storm of emotions is providing clarity and highlighting what's important to me and in me. Something like a path is beginning to form which has been my prayer for a long, long time. I have tried to be patient but still busy. I don't know if I am ready, but if the last 5 years are not enough then I am lost and probably won't be found. I grieve what this process has cost me, but I also accept it now. And now, my toes tingle as I sense the path I have been asking for.