Seasons

I've had a wonderful break here at home. Friends and family quality time. A fantastic short term nanny job that dropped into my lap. Opportunities to regroup physically, emotionally, mentally, and all those others -allys from the past year.

In short, I've had a lot of time and space and I've spent it caught up in two places: dwelling in past seasons of my life and anticipating future ones.

Physical settings are often strongly associated with a specific time in my life. Hewitt/Woodway (the Waco burbs for those non-Central Texans) has my mind lost in decade-old high school memories. Waco and Baylor absorb me back into that magical undergrad experience. Traveling two hours north to DFW has me caught up in the first true support net I made for myself - that dear time and place where I had to become an adult of sorts.

I love revisiting all of these places and times. Through the grace of God and really good parents, I was able to navigate all three of these seasons fairly well. Each gave me cherished memories, relationships, and learning experiences. (In fact, I'm still learning from my time as a 17 year old.)

However, spending months amongst these places comes with strings attached in the form of heavy nostalgia. For me this leads to a kind of sweet melancholy. You can only engage so closely with former successful versions of your life for so long before a little bit of mourning comes into play. There are a few "what ifs" and some "if onlys" that will always be there, but there's also a lot of "I wish I still" and "I had no idea how good I had it."

See, the whole concept of seasons is not one of the things they warn you about when it comes to being an adult.

Of course there'll always be hundreds of people shouting out the normal words of advice:
"Use sunscreen now, unless you want skin cancer and crows' feet at 40."
"Whatever you do, stay out of credit card debt."
"Change that box of baking soda in your fridge."

In those three years out of college, I became really good at adjusting to typical adult things: budgeting, paying bills on time, getting my car's oil changed frequently, making it to work a few minutes early, eating green leafy foods, not letting my cat die (even though he tried kinda hard once).

But I was so unprepared for seasons. And I still am.

How do you mourn an era of your life? Is it ok to do that?

Why can't things be the same? Why can't you ever truly go back?

What if you don't want to move on yet?

No matter how perfect my current season looks to be, I'll always have an ache in the parts of my heart devoted to past versions of that current season.

I'll never have the metabolism or dance ability of senior year of high school again.
I'll never have the excitement of living with my best friend in the middle of Baylor campus again.
I'll never have the exact meeting of circumstances that made working at GFAA such pure joy again.

I don't want to go back and completely relive these times, but I miss the gifts they gave me that only existed for that certain period of time. The freedom of college, the naivety of high school, the dreams of a young graduate - these things all have expiration dates. Sometimes it seems simpler to go back before they became the spoiled milk in the fridge (that you didn't notice because of you always remember to change your baking soda box).

No matter how this writing is coming off, it's not a depressing thing. It's definitely bittersweet and a bit sobering maybe, but rediscovering old seasons for me has mainly been a roadmap of God's blessings throughout the last ten years of life. Seeing how much I've been provided for, how much grace has been extended my way - it's easy to get a little lost in it. But it's a beautiful kind of lost.

Dr. Seuss (as always) hits the nail on the head.

On top of all this sentimentality, my summer is a holding pattern of sorts in waiting for my final year of grad school to begin. I'm in the middle of my "London season"...but I'm not in London! It's strange to be missing this grad school season while I'm still in the midst of it.

I also can't stop my brain from imagining its aftermath. There are so many open ended questions for my next season and that bothers me. I get overwhelmed at the too-many options my roadmap shows for a year from now. What if I pick wrong? Move to the wrong city? Bet on the wrong opportunity? What if there are no opportunities?

Just like George RR Martin's readers, I desperately want to be assured that my fan theories are correct and that things are headed the way I want them to go. Or in the very least that my next book will be greater than its predecessors (but hopefully with a lot less violent deaths than George is like to put in).

Also, none of this tool.

Ultimately though, worry is eclipsed by excitement. My anxiousness over the possibilities doesn't match my glee over having them.

And I'm sure a few years down the road, a part of me will long for that lazy, Texas summer I got to spend not caught up in the problems of my present, but instead dreaming about the memories of my past and the secrets of my future.

To the beautiful bittersweetness of seasons,

p.s. - I made a little something about some of the many activities I actually have been up to this summer. I love you so much, Wacotown.

A Texas Christmas

First off, important food things have happened:

I regret nothing.

Not to worry- I've worked off approximately 15% of all that food via the Cotton Belt Trail in McGregor. That thing is way prettier than the smell emanating from the adjacent city dump would have you believe.

I've also caught up with friends, mentors, coworkers, students, sorority sisters, and one very emotionally-needy kitty.

After spending a few days in DFW and approximately 36 hours in East Texas to visit my dad's family, I was finally able to settle in for a Waco Christmas. Some of my favorite pictures from the day:

My aunt painted this for my two sweet nieces. She knows the King family well.

Speaking of, Chandler is SUCH a happy baby.

  

My aunt always slips a new ornament onto our tree for us to find later. Very sneaky!

 Literally every member of the family received a Baylor gift. Mine ended up being all in black. No complaints here.

Mom's cross stitching: going strong for 26 years. #quality

My friend John and I went to look at Christmas lights later that night. We traveled through the rich people neighborhoods, but didn't get to the super great tacky stuff until we got back towards Woodway. 

I mean obviously I am a fan of any Baylor-themed Christmas lights, but I wanna see a yard where I think your December electric bill must be at least 300 dollars.

Thankfully, Wooded Crest Drive never disappoints.

And just in case you ever start to lose faith in humanity, here's a video of Chandler discovering tissue paper.

Luke 2:19 is not the norm for a favorite Christmas verse, but it has always captured my attention. I love how it breaks the flow of the language and makes the narrative very personal all of a sudden. We've just had heavenly hosts filling the sky and who knows how many shepherds bursting into this barn and you know those sheep had to be bleating up a storm. It's the most beautiful, chaotic celebration swiftly contrasted with this verse of pure stillness, silence, and gratitude. How fitting for the moments after Christ's arrival to be filled with both things.

I hope your holiday was as great a reminder of your blessings as mine was. To the last days of 2013!

Garner Fine Arts Academy

I can't say enough wonderful things about the job I'm leaving. To find out more about GFAA's back story and see what my typical workday was like, watch the video below. It's a year old now and things have only gotten better and harder since.

More wonderful things from GFAA All Stars:

Here are some of my favorite memories from the past two years: 

Last, but definitely not least, here are some excellent words of wisdom I received from several of my students.

Has your brain exploded from all the lovely yet?

To many more favorite memories ahead,