Tea with Mr. Wilde and God

I like my life.

It is small and quiet and often times difficult. I can't really afford much, but there is always enough, every time. I have a handful of close friends here and the circle gets smaller every time life changes. There are healthy good byes and less healthy good byes and there are a lot of far away people that I love very much. But my handful of people that I hold here know me and I like to believe that the depth of love and the miles of life we have covered together is more than a fair trade for the small number. I am ever so slowly learning how to be a healthy human being before God and learning enough about myself to figure out where I want to go. The questions are not all answered, but I am sure that I will have them when I need them. I really do like my life, the people in it, and where I am going.

I need to remember that sometimes. It is so easy to forget in the natural process of moving forward and changing and growing and striving. It can be so easy to lose sight of such a quiet feeling while I am reacting to deadlines and people I like and people I don't especially when those two people are actually the same person. But right now, in the Sunday quiet of my house with too many too busy people, before all of the trying to be who I am becoming starts, and before I begin to take on all of the descriptors for the roles I will play today, I want to remember that I really do like where I am at.

I think life would be a lot less stressful if I could hold onto that while I race through my days. I think I would be better at remembering that if I gave myself the time in the mornings that I promised God I would. It's like he knows what I need, like he's on my side trying to help me first, be healthy and second, stay healthy. Weird.

But I am fighting so hard to be so good that I forget that I do not have to fight him. In fact, most of the fighting I do is fighting that he would gladly do for me if I would just stand on the promises he has made and let him fight for me. As long as I am fighting, however, he stands aside so he doesn't hurt me... so that I know he is there after I beat myself up. I do a fine job of that even during this part of my life that I like so well.

Today, I woke up two hours before I needed to be awake after a whole night of dreaming that everything that I need to do in the next three weeks needed to happen and be finished tomorrow. I was so frustrated and anxious that I could not sleep and then I realized that I was probably going about life wrong again. I was probably fighting too hard when there wasn't really a fight to be had. So today here is what I need to remember (and what I will likely need to know again and again for the rest of my life):

I am loved and I am learning how to love. I am loved by God and by the people he places around me and most days, I don't get to know why. But I do get to know that that is enough. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

One final thought for the rest of today, "Who being loved, could be poor?" [Oscar Wilde]

[string theory?]

I met my alternate self this last week. If there is any truth to the string theory, Catarina is the evidence. She has done everything with art that I almost did... and I have have done everything for the love of flight which she wishes she had done...if she didn't love her paints so much.

It is funny to see all of your "almost" and "what if" or even "if only" externalized. I know now that I would have been happy to follow that road and I am glad for Catarina. I am glad someone could make that choice even if it is not me.

And I am glad to have done all that I have. Today, at least, I can appreciate where I am at and what I am doing. Quietly. But in that near silence I am uniquely confidant of where I stand. I need these encounters to help combat the sneaking suspicion that I am not doing this life thing right. Because those suspicions are always too ready to help fill the space left by more useful thoughts.

So Catarina and I talked of a lot of things... especially given that we were strangers sharing a table in the commons. It is funny how quickly strangers become familiar given a few key facts. But there is that surface tension that first must be overcome. We spoke of home, of family, of talking to strangers, and trusting the world. We compared ideas about art and flying and homeless people in no particular order.

It was much like peering into a mirror... but one which you can touch and talk to (without appearing crazy in the commons). It was a bit strange looking at my Oregon hippie reflection, but also incredibly refreshing.