Big City | Small Town

It's not that the sky-rises lie.
It's that they hide.
The pasts
Their secrets
Tucked behind doors with as many locks as there are hours
Dead bolted against new corners
Sealed against the light
Screaming to not be trusted
Yet silent to the halls

It's not that the little houses don't hold indiscretions.
They do.
Lies and secrets
Scandals and shame
But they are mere whispers
Of what-were's and yesterday's truths
They aren't dead bolted or sealed,
But neatly swept
Under a rug that has been crossed by hundreds of feet.

#WifeMe

#BigCityAdventures

NYC - My Dreams. God's Lesson.

It's funny how we think we know ourselves so well. We think our plan is the best. We think the path we've picked out to accomplish our dreams will the most rewarding. We think our plans are without fault. Yet, without fail, every time the Lord has graciously let me live MY dream/plan/idea, I realize how much deeper his knowledge of me is.

6 months. I spent 6 months applying to internships. SIX MONTHS! I treated it like a full time job. I spent on average an hour to three hours a day researching, applying, tweaking my resume, tweaking my cover letter, updating my portfolio. Hours upon hours of applying only to get rejection emails-- if an email came at all. Faster than I'd been able to get the applications, inquiries, and emails out I was getting rejections. Six months. Six months I was diligent. I was pushing. As a girl who had no connections to the world she was trying to enter, I worked hard. I left no stone unturned. If it was available, I had applied to it.

Fast forward six months, here I am at home. Nothing to show for the previous six months other than failed interviews, lost time, and an email folder full of rejection letters. One night, I'd had it and poor Momma got to weather the Hurricane of Feels that came sweeping in. I broke. All the hours, all the effort, all the dreams that were slipping through my fingers came rushing out in streams stronger than the mouth of the Mississippi. How had I walked away with no internship? How am I going to be a senior in college and not have any design experience. How am I supposed to get a job?

"Don't quit." Two words. Words which slid of Momma's tongue in a way that made you believe maybe you did have an ounce of perseverance left. With frustration on one shoulder and defeat on the other, I let the storm pass and then recollected my marbles and decided that I'd figure out something to do -- even if it wasn't a big internship in the city.

One week. One week after the Hurricane of Feels I had an offer. With a faster turn around than the Earnhardt pit crew,  I'd gone from totally doomed in my career path to a full-time PAID design internship in NYC. My, how God moves. I worked and worked for 6 months. I learned perseverance. I learned dedication. I learned how to challenge myself and think out of the box. Then, in one week from application to offer, I was hired.

It's funny because NYC was always the dream. This was where I wanted to be. This was where my life was going to be. However, one night while riding the ferry home after a long day, I realized that this isn't where I necessarily want to be. See in all of God's graciousness, he has allowed me to live in the city of my dreams. He has allowed me to understand what life is here, and frankly I don't think I want it.

I miss the water. I miss being able to escape. I miss the fresh air. I'm thankful for my time here. I am thankful that I will be able to say I did it! I lived here! But, if or when the Lord calls me elsewhere, I will willingly go. Because this summer the Lord has shown me that he knows me better than I claim to know myself. He knows that this city is not where I would be my happiest. He knows I need water, and space. He knows I need to be able to escape to the mountains, or stand in his forests and remind myself how GREAT my God is! Work is fantastic! And I could NOT have gotten a better job! It is by far my favorite thing about the city, and it already makes me sad to think I have to leave in a month. But work can't be my life. People are my life. Time with them are my life. Experiences and adventures with the people I love THAT is what my life is.

God knew. He gave me the greatest job while he showed me a glimpse of my plan. A plan that I thought was thought out and perfect, yet held gaping holes not even reparable by patches.

God's plan. God's time. You call, Lord. I'll go.

#WifeMe

Desire for More

When we were little, playing in the fiery Georgia clay was so much more than risking the wooden sting on our bottoms for ruining ever inch of our cotton clothing while making mud pies in Momma's nicest pans. It was a way to escape the mundane and pretend even for just a little while that you were more than that barefooted, slow-talkin child. See, I remember the feeling of putting your foot down in the clay. Feeling the cool, smooth fiery red ooze up around my toes, yet the magic happened when you pulled your foot off. There in the good Lord's ground in His country lay the imprint of my foot. MY foot. When you're hip high, you believe your foot will stay there forever. It won't ever leave. Permanently impressed in this world. Isn't that the dream? The hope that somehow, someway something we do, anything, will leave a permanent mark on this world?

These day's I don't even feel close to that little girl who believed her footprint would forever be in the world. How did I lose that? Honestly, this ladder climbing track that I have been on doesn't thrill, excite or scare me. They said go to college. I went. Pick a major that will give you a stable career, they said. I picked two. I'm coming closer and closer to the end, I can actually see the end, and yet all I see is another step on a ladder bolted to a ground with a padded flooring underneath.

I feel stuck. I'm ready to do something that scares the living heck out of me. That seems impossible. That seems just plain crazy. The South is more than just my home. It is the very breath of me. It is forever etched in my DNA. It comes out in how I talk, what I hold valuable, and even in my obsessive need to add just onnnneeee more cup of sugar to the tea because it's not quite teeth-rotting sweet yet. Now, I'm not talking wear-white-britches-after-Labor-Day crazy or having the nerve to walk into the grocery store without your face did and hair tall. No! I'm talking about moving clear across the country because you think part of your story may be there crazy. Crazy like traveling to other countries, countries that take "third world" as a compliment because they know that category is above them, just for the chance to tell their stories crazy.

I'm ready to clock-out of the monotony of this predictable job I've labelled as life. I'm ready to go. I want to fall back in love with this world. Each sunset, every sunrise. I'm ready to be so engulfed the excitement an uncertainty of life that I end up losing myself. Then maybe, maybe when I come out on the other side, I'll be able to be the one sitting on the rickety rocking chair while the crickets sing a soft melody in the background. Then with all eyes locked and ears perked, slowly, I'll begin to verbally paint the experiences that have come and gone.

#WifeMe

#StayTuned

Pause

You think you're flying and avoiding

Running away 

Ignoring

But it's when you finally stop and break

Freeze

Recuperate

That all our mess

All our stress

The very things we were fleeing

Lay stacked around

Suffocating

So where do we start?

Where do we begin? 

Picking up the pieces

Cleaning

Renewing

Undoing

Piece by piece

With feet thus frozen

We start over 

Slower

#WifeMe